How to start a National XR Association in Europe

On June 17th, Eirmersive took part in an XR4Europe hosted webinar where we joined our European counterpart associations from Slovenia and Germany to talk about our histories and current activities, as well as sharing insights that might guide others in establishing organizations in their own regions.

During the conversation, we delved into our genesis and the decisions that kickstarted our journey. We looked at the activities that first took root and strengthened our community-building, how we started, built our network, financed activities, collaborated with other associations, and have evolved our services.

Our fellow panellists from the Technology Park in Ljubljana, presented interesting insights into the work they are doing in helping startups and small enterprises promoting digital worlds. Although not such a well developed XR ecosystem in Slovenia, they have built very useful connections with policy makers and their enabling community is beginning to understand the sector better. They are looking at "rooftop" organisations and a regulatory sandboxing is being developed.

Invr Space in Berlin talked about the considerable overlap between the games sector and XR, but also between XR and the film industry.

There was also a brief discussion on the EU's I3 instrument (Interregional Innovation Investment), which aims at supporting interregional innovation projects in their commercialisation and scale-up phases.