Bit Space Development Ltd.

I’m the CEO of a food education, production, and training company.

We needed help creating an AR/VR environment for one of our clients.

Bit Space leads our AR/VR development efforts, utilizing Unity as their main platform to build a head goggles software solution.

We mainly work with a project manager, a developer, and a graphic designer.

Winnipeg has a small community of developers, so we know them as being part of our network.

So far, we’ve invested about $150,000 CAD (approximately $110,300 USD).

Our ongoing partnership started in October 2021.

We’re still in the middle of the development process, but the team has been able to help us accurately reflect the environment that people will be training and working in, which is good.

The team performs well from a project and management perspective, consistently adhering to the budget and timelines. We typically use Slack to communicate.

We’re impressed with the depth of understanding of the hardware and industry.

I can’t think of anything they need to improve on at the moment and if I did, I would let them know.

I’d advise you to understand the visual assets you’re going to invest and implement and the value you want out of the project. I’d also recommend being clear about what parts of the assets are worth transitioning into.

Georgian College is an Academic Institution. We provide post-secondary education to students from all over the world. My position is Coordinator/Faculty in the Indigenous Studies department.

We hired Bit Space Development Ltd. to create 4 Indigenous virtual worlds. The worlds were based upon our Anishnaabemowin and Program Development program (Ojibwe language) 4 courses. Language in the Home, Workplace, Community and Natural Environment. The virtual worlds were created to simulate real-life experiences for the students to learn Anishnaabemowin. Assets hold recordings in Anishnaabemowin. The goal was to teach, preserve and revitalize Anishnaabemowin to a new generation of learners.

We were referred to Bit Space by Rob T., our Manager of Immersive Learning.

They began with our Language in the Home world. We would come up with a list of assets to go in the environment, we would have to translate them to Anishnaabemowin, and at times we would send picture of specific images for the assets, if Indigenous.

We worked with Dan B. from the beginning and then Jennifer C., I know there was Co-op students and others, but do not know how many.

The experiences for the students and others have been incredible. Have virtual environments to learn and experience over the pandemic was life changing. Not only did the students get to meet up with their classmates in seconds, but it was a safe place and mentally was stimulating through the COVID period. We met our outcomes and will continue to do so as new students come into the program in the fall.

We met with Dan every 2 weeks in the beginning, which assisted a lot in understanding, needs and to cover timelines. The communication has been excellent. Dan and his team listened to our needs and delivered. They have been respectful, understanding, open to learning about Indigenous ways of being.

The Bit Space Team is wonderful, an experience I would repeat again. One of the nicest teams I have worked with. For us we were learning something new - VR/XR, they never made us feel not knowledgeable. We are learning a lot of lingo and terminologies from them which makes us feel comfortable in moving forward.

No, I see no areas of improvement.

I’m the CEO of a provincial crown corporation focused on economic development for northern Manitoba.

We were trying to help local employers adapt to different technology available for training, while supporting a Manitoba business. One of the local mines we were discussing training options with required a VR training program with VR headsets.

Bit Space helped us with our strategy and plan, interviewing both us and our stakeholders to learn what would be good to work on in development. They then created a custom training module for the VR headset.

I don’t know how many people were behind the scenes, but we worked with Dan (CEO) right from billing, as well as Erin (Finance Manager & Human Resources), a project lead, and a project manager.

They were recommended to our sector council. After meeting with them, we could tell that they were excited about the project and expanding into northern Manitoba, which is not standard, as that area is remote and difficult to access. There aren’t many resources there, but they were excited — and a strong partner.

We spent around $50,000 with them.

We worked together from January 2020–February 2021. COVID held up the project, as we needed to access the mine, but we were able to finish on time and on budget.

The mine that we developed this training program for is located in Northern Manitoba, but they’re owned by a Brazilian company. The CEO of the firm came up from Brazil to inspect the mine, but, due to time constraints they could only see parts of the mine, so they saw the rest through our headset. They were very happy about it.

They’re strong project managers, and we communicate over email and Zoom.

We’re in a location that most of our competitors aren’t interested in working around, and Bit Space sees it as a priority to work with us. This speaks to their focus on inclusion and diversity.

The project went on for a long time, but that’s not fair to put on them, as we started during COVID. I don’t have any feedback on this.

Take time upfront to discuss the scope of the project and explain what your needs really are. This is going to make the rest of the project much easier, as you’ll identify the gaps that exist and find solutions to close them. Some people assume that they’re going to get a template product and don’t think this time is necessary, but you’re getting a custom solution.

I’m the CEO of a company that focuses on nonlethal weapon innovation. We try to improve upon the weapons police officers use.

I needed someone to audit the code of specific software and processes.

I needed Bit Space to take our existing code, decipher it, and reorganize it to make it user-friendly. Unfortunately, the code was built by an engineering firm that we hired to develop software for us, and they didn’t do a good job.

I work with three high-end engineers.

I submitted an RFP for a different project, interviewed about 14 companies, and Bit Space came out at the top. Through that project, I gained an understanding of their technical prowess, and I was impressed, so I hired them for this project.

I’ve spent $190,000.

The project started in November 2020, and it’s ongoing.

Considering the project and the scope of the work, Bit Space has done an incredibly impressive job.

The project management has been spot on. We utilize Slack and Asana to communicate, and it’s been super easy to work with them. The engineering team also works directly with my engineering team — we don’t need a middleman, which is a very good thing.

I’m most impressed with their flexibility. We have a statement of work that we initially defined, but there have been inevitable changes to the scope. The Bit Space team has adapted and made adjustments in real-time, which is super beneficial.

I don’t have any complaints about the team.

Bring them a clear project that they’d want to do.

We’re an 115-year-old construction company called PCL Construction, and we operate throughout North America. I lead a division called Special Projects. In the last 14 months, I've also headed the development of new sanitization products called PCL Pure Products. I serve as the operation lead and quasi-inventor for everything that sanitizes things.

We had a couple of different challenges. For example, I normally fly to all of our offices and help our folks there. This also holds true for how we do our business development and define our work. I needed Bit Space Development to create a virtual environment for me, in which I could walk clients around the things that they're looking to build or the services they're looking to buy.

Bit Space Development has sourced various parts of hardware, covering the gamut of putting controllability into the things that we build. We go through various testing stages with them for different pieces of hardware to figure out the best and most cost-effective way to do something. Then, the team develops intuitive ways to market those products using the virtual world. They help us go from building products to taking them to market.

The team has been growing steadily. Having started with 1–2 people, we’re now working with 7–10, depending on what we need at any given time. Right now, they're building a bunch of units that we've finalized. An electrical engineer is looking at building some other prototypes.

I initially met Dan (CEO & Founder) 4–5 years ago. He was heavily into construction, safety, technology, and VR training. We were both looking for a better way to provide interactive environments for clients in the market. We started developing something together, and Bit Space Development was always working in a different, creative, and innovative way. We were collaborating on different aspects of different parts of the market when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

For this project, we had a quick discussion in May 2020, and we started working on it in June 2020. We have a deal in place, where we just keep working together and try to figure out how to help people on whatever scale they need. We’re in a continuous development phase, so I don’t think that we’ll ever wrap this collaboration up.

In general, once we have something implemented and set up the key understanding of how the end user wants to do it, the equipment that we deploy just runs without failure. We deployed one unit in November and, after a week or two of figuring out the best way to use it, it ran smoothly. Bit Space Development makes you not have to think about it, which is great when you sell a product and want to get everything done.

Most of my communication goes directly through Dan. When we have something specific or we encounter a challenge, he brings on the specific team member who is leading it. For example, for the application development for our customer’s integration, he’ll bring on his lead. Then, the lead takes charge and explains, in terms that I can understand, the things we can do and develop. That lead also helps me integrate with the client.

They are able to do far more work with far fewer resources in a shorter period of time at a better cost. With Bit Space Development, you get a better deal and a better product in the end. Dan is willing to stand behind what he does and put his own skin in the game up front to see if he can solve the problem.

The only thing I’d say they could improve is the supply chain management. I say that with a caveat that everybody in the industry is having supply chain issues right now; there are not enough pieces to go around for everybody to build. Bit Space Development is doing a pretty reasonable job with it, but there’s probably a more organized way to work with it. However, it’s pretty minor — I get what I need, when I need it.

Be really clear on the problems that you want to solve, and they’ll let you know where they think they can fit in, or if there are different approaches.