OSVR's Academia Program Brings In 28 Universities

Razer's OSVR program has been on a roll since its inception in January. Recently, it nabbed new partners such as Ubisoft and Leap Motion, but the company also wants to use OSVR for educational purposes which was the impetus for the creation of the OSVR Academia Program. When it was first introduced, I speculated that the applications for the education-based program would be slim, but the company's recent academic institution buy-ins have proved me wrong.

The latest list shows 28 universities in eight countries each getting 10 Development Hacker Kits as well as the source code for OSVR. Listed below are the international universities that will receive OSVR.

• Cracow University of Technology, Poland
• Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
• Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Italy
• Università Catholic del Sacro Cuore, Italy
• Vienna University of Technology, Austria
• Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
• Ryerson University, Canada
• The Art Institute of Vancouver, Canada
• York University, Canada
• University College London, United Kingdom
• University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Even with several international schools picking up OSVR, the largest number of adopters are all universities in the United States -- a total of 17 schools so far.

• Desert Research Institute
• Iowa State University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• North Dakota State University
• Ohio University
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Riverside
• University of California, San Diego
• University of Central Florida
• University of Minnesota
• University of New Mexico
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Dallas
• Virginia Tech
• Wichita State University

The list includes two high-profile schools; Johns Hopkins University, which is known for its medical research, and the University of California, Berkeley, which boasts a prestigious science and technology program.

Although many of these schools have prominent technology programs, it's good to see that there are schools that may want to use OSVR from an artistic or medical standpoint. It will be interesting to see what each of these schools can do with OSVR, but as far as Razer is concerned, these early adopters can give OSVR serious academic backing, which in turn could attract even more schools (and bright, eager young minds) to the VR game.

The OSVR Academia program is by no means limited to the above schools, though. Razer was clear that it wants as much involvement as possible. Interested parties can sign up for the program here.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.