Mobile virtual worlds
Blurring the line between creative and finance
Ideas and innovation are everywhere
Creative ideas can come from anyone at anytime—they are not the private realm of those labelled “creative”. Ask Ian Heidt, a senior manager in the Finance group at Qualcomm and finalist in Qualcomm’s 2007 QIN Venture Fest—an internal business plan competition based on the premise that any Qualcomm employee should have the opportunity to identify and develop prospective business ideas.
“ For me, the most compelling technologies are the ones that give you some awesome, fundamental capability that you never had before and to a large degree, play off some childhood fantasy—there’s a huge amount of power there. ”
- Ian HeidtSenior manager, Qualcomm Finance
The really cool idea
Heidt’s idea explores virtual reality applications. What does that mean? Imagine if you could take your mobile phone, hold it up, point it at a building or a location and see a virtual representation of the real world on the screen.
The concept sounds interesting, but what really makes the idea fascinating is when you take it one step further as Heidt has done. What if information about whatever you pointed your phone at appeared on the screen?
To explain, Heidt recalls one of his childhood fantasies: superhero powers. “Imagine looking at something through your phone and getting all this relevant information—it’s like having x-ray vision. For example, let’s say you’re standing in front of a concert venue—you’re supposed to meet your spouse there but you can’t find her. Your spouse calls, she’s inside already, holding you a seat. Assuming your wife has her mobile phone with her and her GPS location-awareness feature is turned on; you could use your phone to look through the building and “see” where your wife is waiting inside. In addition, you could pull up information about the venue, the number of seats inside, or watch a video of a recent performance.
Now the idea’s really cool!
Turning childhood fantasy into (virtual) reality
Heidt is both humble and honest when asked how he came up with the idea, responding: “The concept is not entirely original—so many “new” things have already been thought about by other people—it was more about recognising the maturity of the technologies necessary to make the concept happen than coming up with something that’s 100% brand new.”
Elaborating, Heidt says, “For me, the most compelling technologies are the ones that give you some awesome, fundamental capability that you never had before and to a large degree, play off some childhood fantasy—there’s a huge amount of power there.”
You never know where that next big idea is coming from In some circles, “Creative” and “Finance” might get a red flag when used together. But Heidt has shown that a person’s title is just a title and that we are all capable of coming up with some truly amazing ideas—and blur the lines between fantasy and reality.
