Brazilian businessman seeks VR opportunities in China

NANCHANG, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- Wearing a VR headset, visitors find themselves transported to an ancient Brazilian cave where centuries-old rock paintings materialize before their eyes, while they can even create such paintings with their fingers.

At the recently held 2023 World Conference on VR Industry, Alexandre Calil Sicchieri Silva from Brazil shared this VR experience with participants, highlighting both Brazilian culture and interactiveness.

The 2023 World Conference on VR Industry, held in Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province from Thursday to Friday, attracted more than 3,000 industry insiders and experts from around the world.

Alexandre Calil is the CEO of VRXP-Consultancy &Production. His company specializes in large extended reality (XR) event production and XR experience design. The interactive experience he presented, Ink &Fire, won international awards in France. It offers users the chance to interact with ancient rock art created by indigenous peoples in Brazil, which boasts the largest collection in the Southern Hemisphere.

"In order to recreate these special paintings as effectively as possible, my team took 300,000 pictures so that people can experience them. I hope that more Chinese people can learn about Brazilian culture and history," said Alexandre Calil, adding that he is also looking for ways to set up an Ink &Fire exposition in China.

Alexandre Calil's interest in China's VR industry dates back to 2016 when the former teacher founded a VR business and was invited to attend an industry conference in China.

"At that time, the whole VR industry was just starting up and I was confused about the future direction of the company. China's VR industry is one of the leaders of the global market, so I hoped to understand China's industry and market, and then find the answer," Alexandre Calil said.

At the meeting, Alexandre Calil noticed a series of VR industry cooperation projects released by Chinese local governments, in which he was interested. "These projects involved education, scientific research, tourism, games and other aspects, showing that China's VR application market had a broad prospect, which would also bring many opportunities to practitioners from all over the world," he said.

He believes that the challenge faced by Brazilian VR practitioners is the dominance of English-language content in this field. His company plans to translate high-quality VR content into Portuguese to make this technology accessible to more Brazilians and contribute to various industries.

At the same time, Alexandre Calil also looks forward to strengthening cooperation between China and Brazil in the VR industry.

"I hope to partner with a Chinese practitioner, so the two sides can work together to lead the XR industry in Brazil to develop better and reach a new height," he said.