University/Non-Profit FAQs

The AREA is an acronym for the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance. Our organization is the only global, membership-funded non-profit alliance dedicated to helping accelerate the adoption of enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) by supporting the growth of a comprehensive ecosystem.

The mission of the AREA is to help enterprises across the ecosystem to achieve greater operational efficiency through the smooth introduction and widespread adoption of interoperable AR-assisted enterprise systems.

Non-profits and University students and staff can benefit from working with the people and organizations at the forefront of this innovation. Non-profits and universities can also benefit from having access to and contributing to AREA member-only content and programs for use in their internal informational and educational activities. Members can request the establishment of industry-specific or regional AREA member chapters and receive discounts on meetings of the AREA and partners, courseware, and fee-based services.

Augmented Reality offers tremendous potential to increase productivity, lower costs, improve safety, enable expertise to be shared more efficiently, and more.

The AREA conducts research, develops content, and galvanizes its membership to offer programs that help enterprises understand the business benefits of implementing AR to overcome barriers to adoption.

Our content presents AR and its enterprise uses and benefits in a vendor-neutral, quantitative and timely fashion. The content supports the deployment of AR and encourages the evaluation of AR-based visualization and communication in IT organizations of both member and non-member companies in all industries.

Our content and programs support knowledge development for IT professionals seeking to deploy high-quality Augmented Reality projects. We publish in-depth materials, such as developer guides on using AR-enabling technologies that are open and interoperable with existing, mainstream enterprise solutions. We establish committees through which our members collaborate on solutions to challenges and prepare recommendations.

Our recommendations and best practices offer guidelines to those developing corporate policy for enterprise AR safety, security, human factors, requirements, and research.

Our programs include convening member and ecosystem meetings on the smooth introduction and adoption of AR in enterprise, the adoption of open and interoperable interfaces, and addressing challenges facing AR providers and systems integrators.

We offer resources, such as a database of current use cases used throughout the industry, a database of AR technology products and services, and research conducted in collaboration with international research publishing firms, utilizing internal resources when and as needed.

The AREA also has a robust, ongoing research program funded by members that produce findings that advance the understanding and adoption of enterprise AR.

When we receive your signed membership application and agreement form, AREA member services will:

• Have an authorized member of the AREA countersign the agreement.
• Return the countersigned agreement to you for your files.
• Issue an invoice for payment of the AREA membership fee (credit card payment can be accepted).

After receiving the membership payment, an onboarding call will be held where members of staff can be invited to understand how to engage with the AREA. A follow-up email will then be sent requesting:

• A summary explaining why your organization joined the AREA.
• A completed member profile form on which we will base the member profile page on our website.
• Images to accompany your profile page (and permission to use them).
• Permission to use your logo in our materials.

As soon as we receive your membership fee payment in full, we will:

• Add your e-mail address, and the addresses of those you provide us, to the AREA members mailing list ([email protected]) and any requested committee mailing lists.
• Create a member account for the primary contact and anyone else whom your primary contact approves, for access to our Causeway collaboration platform (members-only portal) where you will be able to access our committee materials and resources, as well as other programs.
• Invite you to a briefing by the Executive Director about our collaboration tools and committees, and to participate in all AREA member meetings and programs
• Create a member profile page and add your organization to all our materials including documents, website, and presentations.

The consortium is open to any business, organization, or entity interested in augmented reality.

Universities and Non-Profit members pay a fee of $2,500 annually. Membership affords access to consortium activities for all employees and actively enrolled students of the university.

The Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) is a program of Object Management Group® (OMG®), a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization.