Few countries on the planet have experienced such rapid technological breakthroughs as Myanmar, which has leapfrogged from the analog to the digital era in only just a few years.
During many years of junta rule that resulted in 2011, it was one of the crucial isolated countries on the planet, a spot where a cellphone SIM card could cost as much as $3,000.
For half a century, paranoid generals cut off the country, restricting computer sales, heavily censoring the Internet and blocking access to foreign media reports.
However, telephone masts at the moment are being built across the country and, in keeping with telecommunications giant Telenor, almost 80 percent of the population has access to the Internet via smartphones.
Tech start-ups are bobbing up near the industrial capital of Yangon, with many attempting to improve the standard of life for rural residents, most of whom still live without paved roads or electricity.
“The increase in activity from last year to now – new startups, more people determined to become entrepreneurs and work in the technology sector in general – is significant,” said Jes Kaliebe Peterson, CEO of Phandeeyar Community Center.
Virtual reality is the most recent development to make waves, with a handful of entrepreneurs using the technology for projects that include preserving ancient temples and shaping the young minds of the longer term.
The Phandeeyar incubator cooperates with over 140 startups. Among them is 3xvivr Virtual Reality Production, which launches a big drone into the sky over Bagan, certainly one of Myanmar’s most famous tourist destinations.
One of them is Bagan in central Burma the best archaeological sites on the planet, a view rivaling Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. It covers a powerful area 26 square miles area. About 2,230 of the unique 4,450 temples survive, a legacy of the Buddhist belief that constructing a temple means gaining merit. Most of them are perfectly preserved or have been restored by UNESCO.
A drone equipped with a 360° camera circles certainly one of the numerous Ninth- to Thirteenth-century temples that dot the landscape of the once vast ancient city.
The data he records allows individuals with virtual reality headsets to explore temples, and their crumbling centuries-old partitions are so close that they might be touched.
The founding father of 3xvivr Virtual Reality Production, former local TV station chief Nyi Lin Seck, says he makes most of his money by providing virtual reality footage for hotels and luxury apartments.
But after an earthquake damaged the Bagan site last 12 months, he pledged to make use of the technology to secure a digital replica of Myanmar’s archaeological treasures.
“Many artistic endeavors within the pagodas collapsed and disappeared. Thanks to this technology, we are able to register as many as 99% of works of ancient art,” he says.
Source: AFP | National Multimedia | Express Tribune
