J-Fall 2016 Speaker Alexander Chatzizacharias & Erik Pronk – Developing VR apps in Java
Virtual reality is one of the most discussed emerging technologies of the past years. Especially in 2016, which marked the release of the first consumer VR headsets. Game developers all over the world are making awesome games for VR and companies are searching for cool new solutions using VR. Arguably the most used VR platform out there is the smartphone. Thanks to initiatives like the google cardboard, gear VR and google daydream, the smartphone has begun one of the cheapest and most accessible platform for a VR experience. There are already thousands of people that play simple and addictive games using their google cardboard, and there are even more people that watch 360-videos using a google cardboard. Since it’s such a hot topic, we would like to show you how you can build awesome VR apps using Java. In this session we will briefly explain what Virtual reality is, what the most common usages are and give some examples. After explaining the basics behind VR we will show the attendees how they can build their own Virtual reality apps for Android using Java. We will create an application from scratch, showing step by step what people need to know and do in order to bring their VR ideas to life. At the end of the session attendees will have some basic understanding of what it takes to create a VR application, and what kind of awesome things you can do with that knowledge. We also hope that attendees will have been inspired to go and actually bring their ideas to life, helping bringing VR to the next level!
Alexander Chatzizacharias
Alexander is a 26-year old java developer at CGI. He is of Dutch/Greek nationality. Alexander has a bachelor in Game Development (University of applied sciences of Amsterdam) and a master in Game studies (University of Amsterdam). During his master Alexander developed a passion for gamification and new technologies. Combining the two in order to create new innovative solutions is one of his greatest hobbies. Within CGI he is busy with promoting gamification and virtual reality. He is always on the lookout for hot new technologies (such as the Microsoft Hololens). His biggest hobby (and this might come as a surprise) is gaming. From shooters to role playing games, he plays everything.
Erik Pronk
Erik is a 41-year old passionate software engineer that has been working in the ICT sector since 2001. During this period he has gained a lot of experience in a variety of technologies, roles, development environments and market segments. Within CGI he working on Java Enterprise projects and is responsible for competence development of the Java community within CGI.
