Season 2 Episode 8 Show Notes
Today’s guest, Sly Lee, along with his co-founders/co-CEOs at Emerge are at the bleeding edge of the touch dimension for the metaverse. When most of us think of virtual touch, haptic gloves and external accessories are what come to mind first, but Sly and his partners have conceptualized something completely different. They aren’t just recreating one of the 5 senses; they’re creating a sixth! In today’s episode, Sly shares with us how the ultrasound technology they have developed enables people to connect on a much deeper emotional level, and how they plan to continuously improve upon their product going forward.
Key Points From This Episode:
• Sly shares his educational and professional background, and how he ended up in the realm of virtual reality.
• How Sly and his Co-Founders/Co-CEOs at Emerge are changing the way we communicate.
• Why Sly and his partners didn’t want to go the route of haptic gloves and external accessories as a means of enhancing communication.
• An overview of the sound technology that Sly and his partners developed to fulfill their goal of bridging emotional distance.
• How society’s relationship with the virtual world has changed over the past few years.
• Emotional reactions that Sly has seen people have when they engage with the Emerge technology.
• The biggest challenge that Emerge is currently facing.
• Sly and his partners’ commitment to continuous improvement of their product, and the approach they are using to achieve this.
• Advice for entrepreneurs in the fundraising stage.
• What you will be able to do with your Emerge Home device if you are a recipient of one of the initial 200.
• How Emerge’s gameplay differs from other virtual reality gameplay that is already on the market.
• Sly shares his thoughts on the downsides of Web 2.0, and how he hopes that this can be changed in the near future.
• The complementary skill sets and perspectives of Sly and his two Co-Founders/Co-CEOs which have contributed largely to the success of Emerge.
• How the Emerge technology can positively impact accessibility for differently abled people.
• Sly and his partners’ ultimate goal with Emerge.
Tweetables:
“We conceptualized a company that can build the next few paradigms of how we communicate. And we ended up realizing that it's actually about emotion. It's about emotional distance. And one way to bridge that emotional distance is perhaps through enabling physical touch.” — @slyjacklee [0:06:46]
“Emotional disconnection has only increased over time. We see this with some of the downsides of social media 2.0. And we hope that we can add some value.” — @slyjacklee [0:12:48]
“There are people out there that believe in your vision. As long as you're willing to persist, you will find those believers.” — @slyjacklee [0:18:34]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: