ROBERT Farr plans to revolutionise the way Jamaican marketers engage their audiences through his mobile application development company, SIEAE.

SIEAE, an acronym for Seeing in Everything Augmented Experiences, uses a technology called augmented reality. Augmented reality is an enhanced version of a real-world environment whose elements are supplemented by computer-generated inputs such as sound, video or graphics. The technology has been around for almost a decade in the developed world but has only recently hit Jamaican shores, Farr said.

“It gives the ability for your smart devices to recognise real-world objects and project secondary images onto that object,” explained Farr, the president and CEO of SIEAE.

“It’s unique to Jamaica; when we started in May of last year, we were one of the first people to bring the technology here,” he said.

According to Farr, once an object is augmented, smart device users can access the secondary images by simply scanning the instrument over the object. SIEAE initially brought the technology here on a test basis to see how well it would be perceived by smart device users. It generated a lot of interest, he said.

“We have a lot of people who are using smart devices more, and it is a simple point and shoot,” he said.

SIEAE is targeting all individual users of smart devices and businesses with its technology.

“We are able to tap into that audience and provide them with a digital eye to reach a virtual world that you don’t normally have,” Farr said.

“If you take into consideration that everyone checks their smart devices every five minutes, primarily for entertainment, why not provide something where it is useful, and from which you the marketer are able to reach their personal space?” he added.

The company has already done a project with Nissan Jamaica, for which it augmented a flyer.

“You can scan the flyer and see what the cars are all about,” Farr revealed.

Indeed, the SIEAE chief executive envisions the company becoming the digital arm of the print media and marketing companies in the next five years.

“In terms of where the technology goes, we expect that once we introduce it, and people become more comfortable, the need for it will become almost as vital as the need for air,” Farr said.

“Once you are doing your marketing campaign, the first word that comes to mind is SIEAE, which has that digital component that you can take advantage of and reach into the personal space of people,” he noted.

Importantly, it could be a significant instrument for educating Jamaicans, he said.

“Students are now able to feel what they are talking about,” said Farr.

SIEAE has four programmers, including Farr, operating from a virtual office. A major challenge which the company faces is market penetration in a country that is still playing catch-up with regards to technology.

“It’s still something new and a lot of people are still not embracing the technology. In its infancy a lot of people will not want to jump on it too quickly because they are not sure how the market will accommodate it,” he said.

Another drawback the company had was that the technology was not available for the older model BlackBerry device, the dominant smartphone brand in Jamaica. But the company was able to overcome that obstacle with the recent introduction of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

“That was the biggest hurdle that we had, but we are now able to take advantage of BlackBerry customers,” he said.

Farr said his business is not capital-intensive, but requires a lot of knowledge-based sweat equity.

“You don’t have to invest in heavy-duty machinery or anything like that, all you have to do is invest in time to learn the technology,” he said. “That is extensive, it takes a lot of patience and time because it deals with a lot of programming language that we are not really used to.”

Farr is a student of information technology. He started out doing technical support, then ventured into graphic development, for which he has advanced certifications.

“When you get into designing, you look at ways to improving communication with the world, which you realise is digital now,” said Farr.

“How do you use your talent and skills and embrace the digital world? I firmly believe that augmented reality is something that bridges that gap.”