Manuel Toledo, Project Lead of the VOXReality Horizon project at VRDays Foundation, reflects on the project’s journey, its impact on bridging industry and research, and what voice-driven immersive technologies mean for the future of connection and collaboration.
Benjamin de Wit: Manuel, as the VOXReality project concludes, how do you feel the VR conference use case has advanced the conversation around the future of virtual events and communication technologies?
Manuel Toledo: Well, in my opinion, regarding the very initial idea of the VOXReality Project, which came out of the limitations produced by the pandemic time, that was a very good moment to propose this sort of technology in which conferences could be accessible on a remote basis. Of course, after the pandemic, this reality never went away. We kept using remote connections and meetings and technology, which causes a sort of backlash effect of what is called today “Teams fatigue”, where people actually do not want to engage online or remotely anymore.
However, on the other hand, you have that there are some very strict regulations arising in the corporate world where people are limited by the emissions and their ecological footprints. Therefore, they are requiring this sort of accessibility to B2B events and so on. So it’s really interesting how this somehow grew up out of a necessity that at some point seems to be vanishing because we were going back to normal, but that normality never came really back because we had to address other concerns that actually align with the idea of the project — also adding to the sustainability of business operations, allowing to reduce traveling cost to this sort of (B2B) events.
So the way this technology has advanced the conversation I think has been very relevant for businesses like the VRDays Foundation which produces a B2B conference. I think this is something that will keep growing in the near future, and of course we will see very diverse and larger developments on this topic.
In what ways has VOXReality enabled VR Foundation to foster stronger links between the XR industry and the research community? And how do you see this collaboration shaping future innovation in immersive technologies?
Well, I think that the good thing about being part of this consortium, the VOXReality Consortium project, has been also to show the research community that VR Days is not just an event. It’s not just what they will say a platform to show their initiative, but also a place where they can actually find active collaboration and at the same time an access to a larger network of people interested in this combination or interactions between the XR industry and the research community. So from my personal experience in participating in the VOXReality project has been that VR Days has been re-evaluated in the terms of what kind of interactions or value can we bring to the research community.
Can you share a concrete example of a connection or collaboration that emerged directly from VOXReality's bridging industry and academia?
Well, I think the fact that since we joined the VOXReality Consortium, we have been already engaged with several other applications for research projects because some of the partners that we have now, they’re also collaborating with other research groups and they consider that our integration into this proposal is relevant for advancing the project and being able to test it, to really expose what they do and the interactions with the community that the VR Days provides via Immersive Tech Week or the internal communications that we actually have with other networks in the market.
Immersive Tech Week and similar events have showcased VOXReality's developments to international audiences. What kind of responses or discussions did these presentations generate within the XR and events sectors?
Well, I mean, we can remind that VOXReality started almost at the same time that VR Days moved to Rotterdam. So the participation of VOXReality as a consortium and also its partners have been continuous since 2022. They have been engaged in serious conversations with industry relevant actors and they have been presenting the findings of the research in several panels. They have also engaged with other stakeholders in which they have found fruitful collaborations. So I think that from the perspective of showing Immersive Tech Week audiences what they are doing and by extension what we are doing as VR Days Foundation in advancing the XR technology — not just as having an event but also involve ourselves in what’s going on in the research front, especially within the European landscape, the funding, the activities, the interactions — is relevant.
These conversations have been very relevant. Now as I said previously, that also triggered the research community to understand the extra value that we bring to this conversation, not just an event, but also as a place where they can find connections, they can find feedback and where they can actually support themselves in order to advance their research and find potential new partners.
Were there any unexpected questions or use cases that audiences proposed that you hadn't initially considered for the technology?
Within the VOXReality project structure, we have a part called cascade funding. The cascade funding means that the project proposes a technology development up to a certain point in which this technology is made available to others — not the ones who participate — in an open call for funding. These are new companies, startups mostly, that come up to the application and say, “We think we can use your technology in a very different use case.”
That’s the whole idea of the cascade funding. So we selected about five companies that came with very different use cases than the ones we proposed originally for the VOXReality project — from, let’s say, welding technology to preservation of historical sites. And finally, one of the best evaluated projects was a company based in the UK proposing the use of smart glasses to empower people living with dementia and mild cognitive impairment to live independently by supporting their ability to recall information — the glasses would be sort of a partner, a carer that will allow them to live a more independent live.
All this technology base grew from the VOXReality project, but these companies found new ways to use that technology in different use cases. It was very refreshing and encouraging for all the participants of the VOXReality project to see that there was much more than what we were doing. We spent three years in this project, so it’s very easy to go into a sort of “tunnel vision” because we had to be very focused to deliver what we had promised in the original agreement. But to have people that come out of their box was really, really interesting.
Did the cascade funding process also cause some friction or concerns? There was a bit of delay in the process also because of the success of the Open Call.
Yeah, I mean, it’s very… paper can hold a lot of things, and we know that. So proposing a project that is only 36 months and then no delays or no situation that requires extensions or rethink or redirection of ideas will not happen is kind of naive. But the rules are that you have to compose a plan of 36 months and that’s it. We did not manage to do the 36 months because of what you mentioned — we have some delays and how do we present this open call in the most effective way, conversations with companies that were joining in this level and how to facilitate them the best way for them to reach results.
So these sort of interactions also have this human factor that of course they do not run on a linear way so can cause delays. But for the European Union, this was not an issue. We were showing that our progress was substantial and the way we justify our extensions were reasonably within the scope. Therefore, we managed to deliver all results on our end and allowed the companies that came into the cascade funding, the open call, to also deliver what they promised. So at this point in time, by month 39, which is December 2025, we are ready to deliver final results. And this is the conclusion of the project, therefore we are ready to make our findings public.
And actually richer than expected, because there were ideas that were out of the box.
Yeah, I think that’s certainly an interesting thing. We were at our last general assembly that happened in Athens last week. We had the opportunity to have a conversation with one of the founders of this company that represented these smart glasses for people with cognitive impairment, and it was very interesting because for them, being allowed to participate in the Open Call for cascade funding allowed them to take their technology a big step further.
So now they’re talking about getting into production of more glasses and distributing it to more people to keep testing, produce new design iterations and so on, the kind of actions that may allow them to improve their product and see further applications or perhaps going into the market very soon.
From a production and implementation perspective, what were the most meaningful lessons learned about creating scalable, sustainable virtual conferencing experiences?
Well, I mean, in this case, implementing a technology that we developed — of course, the development, the integration of those components is always tricky because we are playing with things that are made for specific different functions that we altered or we modify or we created from scratch. So there’s always this level of uncertainty on how this is going to end up. However, the teams are very qualified to, let’s say, foresee the potential risks or difficulties that could be found.
In the case of the virtual conference experiences, I think this way of presenting virtual conference is very novel because the technology that we presented and the services that we are proposing are focused first of all on a business to business environment. So this is not like for people to go and have parties. Let’s say this is very focused on business to business audiences.
The services are all focused on how we provide accessibility for those people that want to make business in a conference or in a virtual environment, while providing them with real-time translation in six languages. So we assume that people that might join here might not use English as their first language, so they may engage in their native language and therefore the machine will provide that level of interaction on the translation level.
Also, if you are in a virtual environment, most likely you have never been there. Therefore, finding your way around can be as challenging as in a physical venue. However, here the system allows the user to request information and feedback in terms of facilitating navigation through the virtual venue.
And last but not least, we have created a virtual agent that is also able to answer questions from the audience while in the conference regarding the program, where to find specific rooms, provide summaries of presentations, so they can always collect material and be able to process all this level of information in a more efficient way.
So it’s a challenging business, so to say, because if this has to be implemented by the VR Days Foundation, it’s already there. We could do it. But of course, it’s a business model that needs further development. And of course, it’s not cheap technology, because it takes a lot of time and effort. It’s complex technology, but that can put the virtual conference business element on a very high level situation in comparison to other events.
Looking beyond VOXReality, how do you see voice-driven and immersive technologies reshaping how people connect, collaborate, and share knowledge in the coming years?
Well, that’s a good one. I would say that going from hand or control joystick driven, keyboard driven into voice driven is going to be a natural evolution of how we interact with these systems. The more intelligent the machines, the more we can interact vocally with them without needing to have a mouse or keyboard or joystick, etc.
That will allow us also to start perceiving immersivity in a very different way, because now we are really not just moving like in a video game, but we are making more meaningful questions, requesting more specific feedback from the systems. That also allows people to get into richer interactions, because now it’s not going to resemble a video game as in previous experiences, but now we’re going to start getting in real immersivity, which will allow of course to connect in different ways, to collaborate in a level of business environments or work environments and also allow to share knowledge because interactions will not be disrupted by this flimsy technology that we have today that is still not allowing this rich level of interaction or grain that is necessary for human interactions to be on a higher scale, a higher level.
So what we see in the VOXReality project is something that we will see perhaps not as the integration for services, but we will see each one of these services separately being popping up in all the future — not future, let’s say tomorrow’s technology when it comes to interacting in an immersive environment. So as we put it as a project title, this is voice-driven interactions in XR spaces. So that sort of technology is going to be a major feature in the near future.
Within Immersive Tech Week's specific context and community, which sectors or use cases do you predict will adopt these technologies most rapidly and meaningfully?
Well, I mean in the case of the VR conference, we have already people that are doing these virtual worlds to connect to create this sort of virtual conferences. That is something that already exists, and since probably even before COVID time. The big difference here would be that this is not just turning to a game of interacting with people, but that can produce real effects in the way that businesses make business.
That the use of the clients or the services can demonstrate on the business scale that this is profitable, that return of investment for companies invested in this sort of technology is real, that people could actually, or companies could actually claim that these technologies has reduced their ecological footprint because they can join many more conferences or events without having all the ecological impact that they need to measure in their practices per year.
So I think from the VR conference use case perspective, if this is adopted and kept developing within the business that has been proposed for, you could deliver great results.
Now, let’s not forget that this project also contains two other use cases which are also very interesting. One is about training factory workers, high-tech factory workers to produce tasks or to be trained by a virtual agent. That is something that in the high-tech industry is very required because those that can train technicians, high-level technicians, are scarce individuals. So if a machine can provide volume and intensity and great evaluation of those technicians, high-tech technicians, the industry will profit immensely.
Now, on the other hand, we have the augmented reality theatre use case, which actually is spectacular. The last pilot was presented last June at the Athens Epidaurus Festival which is Greece’s foremost cultural festival and one of the oldest performing arts festivals in Europe, to real audiences, and the reviews are really spectacular. This use case is something that with a bit more development can be scaled and applied tomorrow. And this is something that happened because the application was real time, not just another pilot but they put it up in front of one of the largest theater festivals in the world, on stage, and it worked great. There are great images, there are great reviews, and with a very famous theater director validating the experience.
So it’s a real milestone for the technology development to say it was tested, it worked, and that the Greek partners are currently looking for full scale applications. This experience was really “a cherry on top of the VOXReality cake”.
Do you have any personal remarks you still want to make, things you feel like we haven't addressed or that you think should be addressed in this interview, or things that you just want to share about the project?
Mainly something that does not go into the technical discussion, but how much of an experience it was to interact with a diverse group of people coming from different countries, different cultures, with different technical backgrounds, and the way that we all fell into this sort of synergy of collaboration and in many cases also real friendship that we have been sharing for these years. I guess that these results are going to be a solid highlight in everyone’s careers.
Hopefully, this development is something that can be taken by other research groups and expanded and taken beyond what we have done. My biggest gratitude is to the people that joined this consortium, the way they work, the way they contributed, the good moments, the parties, the dreams, and the days of frustration, where things were not working the way we thought, but that’s part of life and work. So I leave the project or finish the project with a great sense of accomplishment and a nice group of people that I’ve managed to meet.
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Manuel Toledo
