Realistic illusions

Imagine you’re in a room full of people, undergoing training for your medical exam. Only, the classroom is actually your own room, and there is really nobody around you — it is only an illusion of your study partners and professors in the form of holograms and while you walk around the room to examine the model of a skull, you’re actually walking around in a virtual room. This is not a scene from a Sci-Fi film, but is reality, developed by Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality expert, Hemanth Satyanarayana.

The 34-year-old entrepreneur who has made Hyderabad his home, is the young genius who was featured in the prestigious ‘MIT 35 under 35 innovators’ list, and now, his company is making news for having received a funding of $500,000 for their latest product that serves as an online virtual classroom.

About how it all began, Hemanth says, “My father is a doctor, and I thought I would also tread the same path, but that didn’t happen. I did my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras and I was also interested in Computer Science. So, I looked for a course that had both the streams. That’s how I was introduced to this field, during my Masters at the State University of New York, Buffalo. They had a small AR and VR lab in the university, prior to entering which I hardly knew anything about the stream,” he explains.

His dream to contribute to the health sector was still alive. Back when laparoscopic surgeries were rare and surgeons had to make large incisions, Hemanth developed an image guided liver surgery apparatus that doctors could strap on to their eyes. It would enable them to see the liver through their body, making surgeries precise.

 On the massive funding, Hemanth explains, “After graduating, I was looking for jobs. I wrote to Sashi Reddi, the MD of India’s leading gaming studio, asking if we could venture into this field. The reply that came back to me read, ‘If you want a job in our company, please apply’. That’s it. So, I thought I should start a company myself. After I got the MIT award, I got in touch with Sashi again, and he agreed to see me. I was late by one minute, and he asked me to reschedule. One day, we finally met and I gave him a demo. He wore the gear and my teammates from office logged in and explained everything to him ‘in person’. He walked around and took in the experience. Finally, he was so happy that he offered us a funding of one million dollars  for the project, but we needed only half of that amount.”

Hemanth says his life has changed quite a bit since that day. “I sometimes miss calls and forget to revert, which makes people think I’m being haughty, but the truth is, I’m extremely busy! I understand now why it was so hard to get hold of Sashi. I try to spend some time with my five-year-old daughter before she goes to bed, so I go home by 8 pm,” says Hemanth, who is originally from Tirupati and Srikalahasti.