Until now, data has existed as dashboards, line graphs, pie charts, and scatter plots. This no longer accurately communicates insights because scale, complexity and variety of modern datasets continue to grow exponentially. An immersive data environment offers a much better way to explore datasets naturally and holistically, while decreasing the amount of time and effort needed to discover actionable insights. Meet Datawhisperer Suzanne Borders, THE rockstar of data vizualisation, at #mthcon and find out how. 

Suzanne Borders is considered one of the best XR (virtual and augmented reality) specialists in the world. She is founder and CEO of the #dataviz startup BadVR, the world's first immersive data analytics platform. In order to build up the company she turned down jobs at Google and Disney.

BadVR wants to empower everyone to understand their data. “As a society, we have become aware of the power of data and the impact it has on our lives. It’s important that we create tools that make it easy to work with this data,” Suzanne Borders recently emphasised. But how does BadVR work? BadVR takes really large, complex datasets and pours them into virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to help people gain insights faster and to present data in a more intuitive and easy-to-use format. 

Before she became a founder Suzanne Borders led product and UX design at two-dimensional analytics companies including Remine, CREXi and Osurv. That was when she realized that data was always flattened into two dimensions: files, spreadsheets, reports. But the human brain is designed for a 3D world. So she concluded that virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies offer new and impressive ways to explore datasets naturally and holistically and make it possible to perceive up to 100 times more information than via traditional spreadsheet. Large amounts of data can be transformed into simple, easy-to-understand visual elements. 

Bad VR offers help when it comes to 5G installations or monitoring crime rates — BadVR enables real-time geo-spatial data to be viewed on the neighborhood, city, or even nationwide. It is accessible to everyone. 

BadVR has been awarded a grant from Magic Leap, an augmented reality headset manufacturer, that is the biggest competitor of Microsoft’s HoloLens on the Mixed Reality Market. BadVR will now commercialize an app that allows people to see and interact with radio signals around them with the help of  augmented reality. This product is called SeeSignal. It was built in partnership with Magic Leap. Using the Magic Leap AR headset and SeeSignal, you are immediately able to look around you and see the strength of your cellular phone signal, wifi, or bluetooth networks. “All of the data from your networks is accurate to your environment and devices, and can be layered together to explore the complex interactions between the (previously unseen) digital worlds around you”, it is explained on their website. Suzanne Borders recently added in an interview: “Our technology will be incredibly beneficial to telecommunications companies as they plan out their 5G network deployments, among many of its uses.” 

BadVR does not only receive grants from Magic Leap but also from the United States National Science Foundation. They expect from BadVR the development of the next generation of analytic tools. Tools that can address challenges of visualizing and analyzing large geospatial datasets.

The SeeSignal application will be available in the Magic Leap World store soon. The full platform release is scheduled for 2020. 

Be quick and grab your Early Bird ticket for #mthcon on November 19th and 20th 2019 now.