Elixar Systems is a BITSian Augmented Reality (AR) startup. Using Augmented Reality, a real world setting viewed through a computer or smartphone screen can be overlaid with a digital object. AR is a fast-growing technology with a wide array of applications. Although smartphones are commonly used to implement AR systems, smart glasses are expected to make use of AR to its fullest potential.

EPC interviewed the four founding members of Elixar Systems: Ahmad Faraz, Sashakt Tripathi, Harshit Awasthi and Shubham Gupta. They started the company in their hostel rooms during their second year in BITS. After reading up on Augmented Reality, they were convinced that AR would be the next big thing after smartphones. Thus, the idea of Elixar Systems, one of India’s first AR applications companies, was born.

Having already partnered with NCERT, Elixar is making great strides in its primary target sector^__education. The team plans to revolutionize the way students learn, by overlaying visuals on the diagrams and text found in NCERT textbooks.This enables students to actually visualise what they’re learning on a 3D plane. For example, instead of reading about how guard cells found under leaves are kidney-shaped, one can actually see what guard cells are shaped like through an interactive model. Ahmad Faraz, the Chief Financial Officer of Elixar Systems, called this ‘experiencing education’. He said that humans can learn better through observation rather than textual or rote learning.

Elixar Systems has already accumulated a team of sixty people from colleges across the country, including IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur. The company has won numerous competitions, most notably the Pravega Innovation Summit at IISc Bangalore, and IIGP 2.0 (India Innovates Growth Program 2.0). These wins have provided legitimacy as well as substantial grants of over 10 lakhs to the company. However, the team has not yet received the prize money for either of the victories. They plan to use their winnings to purchase AR glasses and develop apps for them.