By Michael Elioff
Feb 22, 2021 11:35 AM
Exar Studios is a local startup that specializes in Augmented Reality. They have worked with the City and with Museums to create experiences that can be viewed using their Engage Art app. For their latest project, they have partnered with Western’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES) to host a competition.
The Augmented Good Competition is the first of its kind. Exar’s Chief Growth Officer Ben Switzer spoke on how the competition got started.
“We were having discussions with Professor Mensink, he’s our partner there at the university. We were really discussing ways that technology can expand education in various ways. In particular, we were discussing how data that is telling a certain story about the environment can be conveyed in a way that’s beautiful, engaging, and different.”
Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks” back in 2014 suggests that the total number of global outbreaks has increased since 1980. Since then, we have had the SARS epidemic back in 2003, the H1N1 virus in 2009, the MERS outbreak in 2012, the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and now COVID-19. Ryan Troyer, PhD, virologist at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry says that they want to be ready for the next coronavirus pandemic and explains the link in bats.
“We find that these coronaviruses in each of those cases, there are related coronaviruses in bats,” Troyer said.
“Even though the transmission to humans can is potentially complicated, bats appear to be a unique and important reservoir species for a high diversity of different coronaviruses, including ones very similar to those that have emerged in humans.”