Presentation of AUREA Award Winners 2025
Photos: Courtesy of Europa-Park Erlebnis-Resort
(eap) From 22 to 24 January 2025, the Europa-Park Erlebnis-Resort was once again the scene for pioneering technological developments: At the invitation of Michael Mack and MACK One, entrepreneurs, experts and visionaries from all over the world came together for the seventh “AUREA Award” ceremony. Outstanding innovations were honoured in the fields of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Extended Reality (XR). Kathleen Cohen, founder of The Collaboratorium, once again chaired the jury. She was supported by Thomas Wagner (co-founder and Managing Director of VR Coaster), Emily Olman (CEO of Hopscotch Interactive), Frank Govaere (Animation Director, Producer and VFX Supervisor at UFA), Simon Alexanderson (CTO of Motorica AI) and Dirk Freytag (President of BVDW).
Ten finalists showed their concepts to the jury, who presented the award in the categories of “Experience/Immersion”, “Innovation”, “Interaction”, “Impact” and “Creative”. The award in the Experience/Immersion category went to the Canadian company Moment Factory for its multimedia installations in the new French water park Aquascope (see EAP 5/2024). In the Innovation category, the American app developer TRIPP was honoured for “Kōkua AI”, an AI-based wellness coach that offers personalised mental health solutions. The mixed reality skateboarding game “Skatrix Pro” by Reality Crisis from Helsinki was honoured in the Interaction category. The Impact category, on the other hand, was won by the Austrian company Arrival.Space. Arrival.Space impressed with its “Virtual Worlds Museum”: a virtual museum that aims to preserve the history of digital worlds and make their development tangible with interactive exhibitions. Finally, scientist and designer Botao Amber Hu was honoured in the Creative category for his “Nocturnal Fugue”, a mask that allows the user to experience life through a bat’s perspective through EchoVision.
The initiator of the Aurea Award, Michael Mack, emphasised: “The nominees for the AUREA Award impressively demonstrate how bold visions and state-of-the-art technologies can change our reality in the long term. With MACK One, we want to promote precisely this innovative spirit and see the AUREA Award as a dynamic platform for dialogue between the brightest minds in the industry.”
To learn more about virtual reality that really leverages the immersive experience, read also through our latest magazine issue, EAP 1/2025. ■
