Some people find VR to be a solitary experience - too lonely to ever really be a place that humans can feel comfortable in. Well, tell that to Alan, when he met today's guest - Kalle Saarikannas from Glue - in Glue's virtual reality chatroom. Despite being continents apart, it felt like they were face-to-face. Kalle sits down again with Alan - this time, without the avatars - to explain why he wants to make Glue a household name.

Alan: Today's guest is Kalle

Saarikannas, business development manager for Glue, a new

collaboration platform -- and I'll let him talk more about it -- but

Kalle is a 26-year-old combination of curiosity for emerging

technology and commercial sense, making innovations a reality. Glue

is a multi-user, multi-device, virtual reality hosting platform that

is redefining the future of remote collaboration. Prior to Glue, the

pioneer of XR remote collaboration, Kalle was working closely with

intelligent packaging, RFID sensor tech, mobile augmented reality,

and RFID solutions for B2B and Consumer Engagement Solutions. He's

built a strong, built-in entrepreneurial mindset, and established his

first business at age 15. He has a master's degree in business

management from Hanken School of Economics, and an expression of his

interest towards XR technology. He wrote a master's thesis about XR

tech, "Immersive Virtual Reality and Training, Using VR in the

Facilitation of Learning." His free time is spent volunteer

firefighting in Helsinki, Finland. To learn more about Kalle and

Glue, you can visit www.glue.work. Kalle, welcome to the show; so

excited to have you.

Kalle: Yeah. Thank you, Alan,

for having me on -- and Glue -- in the show.

Alan: It's really wonderful. I

had the opportunity to try your platform back in New York during...

there was a conference, I can't remember what the conference was, but

we we're speaking at it, and I got an amazing chance to meet with

your colleague, Jani. And he got to show me the Glue platform --

which, for the people listening -- imagine putting on a VR headset,

and it doesn't have to be the most fancy headset. They'll work with

all of them. You put it on, and now you're standing in a room. Like,

you and I had a conversation -- you were in Finland, I was in New

York -- and we had a conversation as if we were standing in the same

room together.

Kalle: Yeah, I remember that. It

was quite fascinating to me, too. For the first time in virtual

reality, we were having an eye contact with each other, although we

were some 4,000 miles apart, in different continents.

Alan: It's really cool. So,

maybe describe the Glue platform, and what your vision is for this.

Kalle: As you mentioned in the

intro, Glue is a software; a system for live mobile device virtual

reality collaboration. We're not just a virtual reality platform, but

we also support desktop users, mobile phones, iPads, and we provide a

whole service for having meetings in virtual environments. Basically,

our business model is that we are building a platform which operates

in a software as a service model, by offering the client access to

persistent virtual spaces that can be customized to the needs of the

client. Let's say a enterprise wants to -- that has a lot of remote

meetings using traditional remote softwares, such as Skype for

Business or Google Hangouts, which are based on two-dimensional

screens. You're having video calls, you can see the other from the

camera -- instead of that, we offer three-dimensional virtual spaces,

that you can really feel the presence of other people, although you

are sitting on a different continent, miles apart.

Alan: It's one of those things

where describing virtual reality to people that haven't tried it is

like describing the color red to a blind person. It really doesn't

work. The way I