Imagine a world where a visit to a graveyard would lead to the discovery of the life stories of its occupants simply by scanning a gravestone with your phone. Each cemetery or remembrance site would provide access to a modern-day archive, documenting each individual’s history in perpetuity. This is the world that immersive technology and the Alkek Library’s Dr. Khoi Nguyen are making a reality, one project at a time.
Nguyen is the library’s emerging technology supervisor and he manages the Alkek One Immersion Studio, one of the new technology centers on the Alkek Library’s first floor. The Immersion Studio is the place to experience and learn how to create in new realities like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality, cinematic reality, 360 degree video and whatever immersive technology comes next. It’s all pretty heady stuff and it takes an expert, like Nguyen, to understand how this cutting-edge technology works and make it accessible for students and faculty to use and create, regardless of their background or level of experience.
He currently teaches introductory workshops, that require no prior knowledge of programming, on AR and 3D web design using Apple’s new product Reality Composer. And he is available to introduce students and faculty to the applications that all of the studio’s immersive realities can provide for their classes and their projects.
“Creating VR environments is extremely hard, so we provide the expertise. We have all the models that they can use. We have the programming expertise and all of the equipment—3D scanners, motion capture cameras and everything they need to create a professional looking VR title,” Nguyen said. “We also have enterprise licenses to cinematic models that we can use as an institution. Students can come in here and explore the different applications of VR. I can show them the applications so they can feel the power and evolution of what this is going to be and how it will change the world.”
Nguyen is well acquainted with experiencing and transitioning to new realities in new worlds. Even the late James Michener would have had trouble chronicling his life story in a single volume. Nguyen and his family escaped war-torn Vietnam. The family, including nine children had to split up and pretend to be Chinese to get out of the country. The girls, younger children (including five-year old Nguyen), and their mother traveled by boat. His older brothers left on foot as did his father who left later. Eventually, the family reunited at a refugee camp in Hong Kong where harsh conditions presented new realities including living in a tent with a hundred other people, being forced to use his tiny fingers to push pins into the wristbands of watches, and bathing in a trash can.
After 13 months, an uncle was able to arrange for the entire family to journey to America to the projects in Kansas City, Missouri. This reality was better, but still came with heavy responsibilities for a very young boy. Nguyen rose at 3 am to make pastries with his mother and deliver them to the markets before going to school where his teachers immediately took notice of his intelligence. They gave him a great deal of attention and he was able to get a good education.
But another new world became a part of his life story when the family moved from the projects of Kansas City to the barrios of the Gardena/Compton area of California until finally, the family landed in Orange County, California. All along the way, Nguyen excelled in the classroom, but even though Berkeley, USC and other top-flight universities came calling, he opted to stay close to family and attended UC Irvine where he studied Mechanical Engineering. After graduating, he remained at UC Irvine earning both a masters and PhD in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering –yes he’s really a rocket scientist. Driven by a desire to work toward the public good, for his dissertation, Nguyen did mathematical modeling to solve issues related to air pollution in Southern California.
He then spent seven years as a math professor at a liberal arts college in Chicago, but Nguyen’s passions took his career in a different direction.
“I loved my professorship, it was great, but I wanted to do something that was more related to my heart,” he said. “Once I had enough economic freedom, I pursued the passion of finding the heroes of my life.”
These heroes are the ones who made it possible for him to be able to succeed and enjoy a life of freedom as a U.S. citizen. The civil rights advocates that fought for racial equalities and LBGT rights as well as the military heroes who died for the freedoms he enjoys are near and dear to his heart.
“For me, these are the people who laid the foundations for me as a boat refugee and getting all of the benefits of this great country, and rising from the lowest standard as a refugee to the highest station which is citizen, and then getting my PhD. It all happened because they laid the foundation for it,” said Nguyen.
He put his talents to work for the National AIDS Memorial, where he developed the artificial intelligence to make it possible to experience the massive 54-ton AIDS Memorial Quilt using augmented reality. The quilt hasn’t been unfurled since 1989 because there is no place that can hold it, so people would create their memorial rectangles and send them off to be added to the quilt and never see them again. The technology Nguyen developed made it possible for them to actually hang the digitized version of their quilt in their homes so that they could share it with friends and family and talk about the person it represents.
He also made it possible to use artificial intelligence to summon up the stories of the more than 2,500 individuals whose names are engraved in the Circle of Friends walk at the National AIDS Memorial Grove by simply scanning their names with a phone. The stories that are still being gathered, but the technology he developed means those stories will be brought to life for those who want to understand them.
Last fall, Nguyen joined the Alkek One team at Texas State where he is using his technology expertise to help students and faculty learn how to use immersive technologies to give life to their work in new and different ways.
“I was looking for a place where I was not teaching, but where I could still play in technology and bring my influence of projects that are socially conscious. I wanted to use my talents for that,” he said.
Nguyen’s latest endeavor is a proposal to build on the technology he created for the National AIDS Memorial Grove to chronicle the stories of the veterans in our National Cemeteries.
“I’m developing, with some of my cohorts here, an app, and hopefully it will be a web app, where you can shine your phone onto a gravestone and it can recognize the name and pull up a database of videos, text and images that their family members and friends have left that memorializes them in perpetuity,” he said. “I believe this is how we should memorialize people in the future.”
This project is a huge and will require massive funding as well as the cooperative work of government agencies, multiple universities and the private sector.
“I think big,” Nguyen said.
He is also currently working on two personal art projects that involve the creation of paintings of Harvey Milk and Barak Obama using the fingerprints of the civil rights leaders that helped pave the way for their achievements. He has collected 38,000 fingerprints for the Harvey Milk painting along with personal interviews with the participants that can be shared using artificial intelligence through the painting. These projects will take years and countless hours to complete.
It is obvious that big projects, big transitions and new realities don’t deter his drive and passion to achieve great things. Nguyen’s life journey has taught him the value of education and hard work and lucky for the students and faculty at Texas State, he is here at their library to help them think big and do big too.
This article was contributed by Debbie Pitts, University Libraries Marketing and Communications Coordinator.