Raine Kajastila
Raine Kajastila was involved in the development of a technology which transforms an ordinary climbing wall into a new game platform for augmented reality. The ambitious combination of research and entrepreneurship brought Kajastila the Young Research Entrepreneur of the Year award.
The Augmented Climbing Wall turns a climbing wall into an interactive touchscreen to which one can create climbing routes and play a variety of games either alone or with a friend.
The idea of a climbing wall with augmented reality features was born when Kajastila worked as a postdoctoral scientist at the Aalto University’s Media Institute at Game Research. In 2013, Kajastila made a research video with his research team to test the Augmented Climbing Wall prototype. The video reached over 70,000 views in Vimeo. Kajastila started receiving messages asking him to develop a product based on his research.
Kajastila got funding for Augmented Climbing Wall and set up a company called Valo Motion. Nowadays the Augmented Climbing Walls can be found for example in climbing centers. Augmented Climbing Wall encourages people from school kids to adults to exercise in a creative manner.
More information:
Raine Kajastila,
CEO, Valo Motion
raine@augmentedclimbing.com