iQ3Connect

ALI MERCHANT: My name is Ali Merchant. I am the CEO and co-founder of iQ3 Connect. iQ3 Connect has developed a 3D-- a VR collaboration platform that manufacturing organization companies can use for their product engineering and training. Our technology powers a 3D workspace, a high-performance workspace that companies can use for their product engineering and training.

Imagine instead of using a 2D collaboration tool like PowerPoint, you could simply enter a 3D global space and invite other global team members to participate in that 3D environment just with the click of a button. And you never have to leave your desktop. That's what iQ3 is enabling for engineering organizations.

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ALI MERCHANT: I got my PhD at MIT in the AeroAstro Department. And I worked on technology for 3D geometry, which was used for design and analysis. And about two years ago, when the low-cost virtual reality devices started coming on the market, we saw an opportunity to take that technology platform that was developed at MIT over 10-plus years of research, and use that as a foundation to build the iQ3Connect collaboration platform.

So my research was in turbo machinery, and designing very complex turbo machinery geometry. So these are blades that have very twisted and complex surfaces. And that led me to understand 3D geometry, and 3D CAD, and how those things connect to enable me to design these complex shapes that are used in aircraft engines. And that then formed some of the basis for the later technology that we're using in iQ3Connect.

Virtual reality has been in the engineering space for almost two decades. And these are very complex. They take up almost entire rooms, and they have been used to solve engineering design problems.

But the challenge has always been that did they require very specialized expertise to use these systems. And they're extremely expensive. And while they are providing a lot of value to solving engineering problems, they are very limited in the way that engineers can use them in their day-to-day design processes.

And that's where we saw an opportunity to allow 3D product designs to be brought into, to make them more accessible, so that an engineer can simply use that right from their desktop to engage in, rather than just looking at 2D possibilities, look at the exact 3D design, and understand it at the same scale as it would look, as you would see it in the real world.

So for example, an engine-- if you look at it on your laptop screen, you really can't tell how big it is. But in the virtual reality system, you can see it at its actual scale. So you could actually walk into the nacelle of an engine, and then go in between the blades, and understand the complexity in a way that is not possible on a 2D desktop screen, or even a large, 2D screen. And so that completely transforms the way engineers can work and collaborate during the product engineering processes.

So I'm an engineer. And my task is to maybe do a design review on a new product that has been released. And what I might do is, say, create PowerPoint of that, take screenshots of that 3D model, or invite somebody to a WebEx.

But now with iQ3 on my desktop, what I could do is essentially schedule a VR meeting, and invite my colleagues-- and maybe they're in India or Japan-- and say, hey, I need to review this design, this 3D design with you, and set up a time, and then just basically enter a 3D meeting, just like a WebEx. And when I'm in there, I'm actually sharing a completely 3D workspace with them. So imagine I'm stepping into a common workspace, and I don't ever have to leave my desktop.

And I can then work directly on the 3D geometry, and engage with my team members, who may be globally located, identify problems, make changes to the design, mark it up, and essentially complete a design review that I would have done maybe with a PowerPoint or WebEx. But now I can do that much more efficiently and quickly in a virtual reality space, and reduce the number of errors that might occur with some of the other conventional tools.

If I'm doing it with a larger team, typically what happens is that during a product design, the initial prototype design might be released. And then I might be part of it, but a cross-functional team that has to validate that design, and raise aspects of that design all the way from the way the parts fit together to can I reach this? Can I reach a specific part? And how am I going to access it? And how am I going to manufacture it?

So all these questions have to be answered by different teams. And what iQ3 enables is all those teams to come together in a real-time, 3D environment, so that they can actually work much more efficiently and quickly to resolve problems, and essentially get on the same page. And what this avoids is the need for people to travel. So instead of scheduling a travel, or trying to find availability of people, the virtual meeting space scan can make that a far more quicker and easier process for everyone, and save a lot of time in the engineering, in the design review process.

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SPEAKER 1: You can do this right from your desktop, and a natural extension of that is to be able to conduct other things in a collaborative environment like training. So if I need to train technicians or other people that are involved in the product in some way, not necessarily in the upfront engineering process but in the procurement or in the supply chain or how they're going to assemble this on the shop floor-- all those people can participate upfront and resolve problems early on in the design process.

Because the later these problems occur in the design process, the more expensive and time-consuming they are to solve for companies. If you can improve the quality of your engineering and solve these problems before you send it to manufacturing, then you can save a lot of time and money. Once you enter an IQ3 meeting space, and there could be 10, 20, 30 participants in this meeting space, it is designed to have one presenter, just like a web conference.

And that presenter can essentially create a storyboard and lead everyone through the kind of design changes or hot spots or issues that need to be discussed. And just like a web meeting, you can make anyone the presenter. And that person can then lead everyone else through the issues that they're encountering or facing, and that is a structured way to use IQ3.

But because it's a 3D space, everyone can freely look at the 3D geometry or be completely free to move around in the 3D space, just like you would if you were in a physical factory floor walking around a product. And that enables everyone to engage independently. And then you can bring everybody together in a meeting. So it's a much more productive environment. And you can almost work in parallel in this 3D space.

Yes, in the last two years, companies like Oculus and HTC, and there are many more now, the cost has dropped significantly. The computers are becoming more capable. And that is a great opportunity for IQ3, because where we focused is in creating a high-performance hardware and platform-agnostic system so that we can work with almost any hardware that's out there.

And you can use a mix of devices that best suit your company's requirements. So what we have done differently than other companies is to use web technology, a web standard that is being adopted by several of the browser companies. And that gives us a huge advantage over other VR software that are much heavier. Because we work through a browser. That gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of how IQ3 can be used in an organization.

Or you need to bring your customers or suppliers into an IQ3 meeting, all they need is a browser and a headset, and they do not require any installation. So the deployment of IQ3 within your business process or enterprise environment is very frictionless. You can do this right from a desktop. And a natural extension of that is to be able to conduct other things in a collaborative environment like training.

So if I need to train technicians or other people that are involved in the product in some way, not necessarily in the upfront engineering process but in the procurement or in the supply chain or how they're going to assemble this on the shop floor-- all those people can participate upfront and resolve problems early on in the design process.

Because the later these problems occur in the design process the more expensive and time-consuming they are to solve for companies. If you can improve the quality of your engineering and solve these problems before you send it to manufacturing, then you can save a lot of time and money.

ALI MERCHANT: So we have a number of partnerships either with companies that have technologies that are synergistic with iQ3. So one of our partners is 3D at Depth that has undersea LiDAR technology. And what they are able to capture is the undersea oil drilling structures that companies have deployed. And because of the large amount of data, they needed a platform, and their customers can use iQ3 to collaboratively assess the condition of their assets, which would be extremely difficult without either technology. So that is one example.

Ocean engineering is a reseller partner, and they have been in the simulation space for almost two decades. And they bring a lot of technical expertise, as well as they work with companies that fit the kind of companies that can benefit and use our technology. So they are software partners.

We started iQ3, in our initial meetings with companies people got very excited, and there was an initial wow factor, which then dies off. And then, the question was, well, how am I going to benefit from this? What's the business case? Where's the ROI?

And so, we have been very fortunate to develop relationships with early customers and really understand their business needs and problems and shape our technology to actually solve those real engineering problems.

So in the early days of iQ3, we were focused more on the technology so we built a very good technology platform. But then, we started working more closely with companies with real business problems. And we are now addressing how to bring iQ3 into their business processes and to solve real engineering problems so that they can see the ROI.

One of the advantages of using iQ3 is the supplier collaboration. So we are already seeing a tremendous interest in OEMs and their suppliers-- because the suppliers have to interface with the OEMs. So at the end of the day, if those communication barriers can be reduced, then there's a huge cost savings on both sides.

So we're seeing interest from the tier 1 suppliers, for example, that are building factories or supplying various components to the automotive companies that are interested in VR collaborative technologies like iQ3 to streamline that process of working with the OEMs.

Yes. Because of the performance of the iQ3 platform, we have interest in data visualization. And in some cases, we have had some interaction with visualizing molecules and so on for the pharmaceutical, but one area of interest that is not in the manufacturing space is business data visualization.

And so you can generate a lot of data maybe that's from Salesforce or from training or from other Internet of Things, and you need to have a large canvas. A 3D canvas is the best way to visualize these large data sets. And the advantage that iQ3 brings is the ability to do this in a collaborative way, a collaborative manner. So we can bring in a very large data set into iQ3 and let participants, essentially, analyze that data freely in this 3D. Space so that is a non-manufacturing application of our technology.

So one example is an automotive company where they would rely or even a company that manufactures machines, and they rely on building physical prototypes to assess certain problems-- like, can I reach a particular part, or can I fit some part into this very complex area where there are other components? And how am I going to access it? And those things, they would rely on building physical prototypes or use other means that have in the past resulted in costly errors.

And so that is a very specific case where they were able to use iQ3 to solve their problem upfront before they commit to manufacturing. And they're able to do this in a collaborative space. It's not just one engineer, but they can bring the relevant engineers or even their suppliers and their customers to engage to solve the problem.