Meta has announced a new Mixed Reality program in India that includes a grant of USD 250K for Indian startups and developers to build apps and experiences using Meta’s Presence Platform – the company’s broad range of machine perception and AI capabilities for the Meta Quest Platform and ultimately the Metaverse. The Fund seeks to nurture innovation and build an ecosystem of XR technologies in the country.
As part of the program, a selected group of up to five Indian developers and startups will receive a financial grant, along with dedicated mentoring and guidance from the Meta Reality Labs experts. They will also have an opportunity to upload their product to Quest App Lab and become part of Meta’s growing developer ecosystem. Selected startups will also get an introduction to leading local venture capital funds at the end of the program.
Said Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President for Meta in India, “With India set to have the world’s largest developer base by 2024, there is a stronger need to foster innovation and emerging technologies in the country. Meta is committed to building the XR ecosystem in India. The Presence Platform is an integral part of the metaverse vision, aiming to make virtual experiences more tangible and accessible. We believe that this fund and program will accelerate the creation and adoption of VR and MR experiences in the country and give Indian developers an opportunity to go global with their innovations.”
To create mixed reality environments that feel natural and authentic, Meta has been working to improve the way that motion and space are represented in-app. The Presence Platform is a suite of capabilities that allows developers to build compelling Mixed Reality experiences seamlessly blending virtual content with the physical world. The capabilities offered by Presence Platform are already incorporated into some of the most popular apps on Quest, and developers around the world are already building with Presence Platform.
The Fund is now open for applicants, inviting both established and emerging startups and developers to experiment with the skills offered by the Presence Platform. In the coming months, the company will select up to five companies that will participate in the program and receive the grant.
This program is open to developers and companies across India, irrespective of their size. Individual developers must be 18 years or older at the time of the proposal submission.
The chosen developers will need to integrate Presence Platform into existing or new Meta Quest apps via features such as Passthrough, Scene Understanding, Spatial Anchors, Shared Spatial Anchors, Voice SDK, Text to Speech, Interaction SDK for Hand Tracking and Social Presence APIs.
