Ingram Micro NZ and HP driving VR for schools

Five Kiwi resellers will soon be big winners in the eyes of their favourite schools, thanks to an Ingram Micro New Zealand and HP promotion which will see the resellers winning a VR kit for their selected schools.

Ingram Micro is giving away five HP Z VR Backpack G1, valued at more than $6,000, along with HTC Vive Consumer edition VR headsets, valued at $1,500 along with Tilt Brush VR software.

The kits will go to the first five resellers to purchase $200,000 worth of selected HP education SKUs during the promotion period, which runs from 1st October until the end of December.

In addition, all resellers purchasing one of the eligible HP education SKUs within the promotion period will go into the draw to win one of the kits.

Luke Mitchell, who manages HP marketing at Ingram Micro, says, "We wanted to make sure that there is a wildcard in place because we feel it would be great for every one of our resellers to have the chance to be part of this opportunity."

Jamie Hall, Ingram Micro New Zealand HP business development manager, says the promotion is designed to encourage schools to get excited about emerging technology, while also driving sales for HP's education range.

Ingram Micro is also hoping the promotion will drive interest in the new HP Z VR Backpack G1.

"The HP Z VR Backpack G1 is the latest and greatest from HP and it's unique to them – there is no other vendor out there with anything like it," says Hall.

HP says the HP Z VR Backpack G1 is 'the world's most powerful wearable VR PC', with an Intel Core i7 vPro processor, NVIDIA Quadro P5200 GPU and 32GB of dual channel DDR4 system memory. The unit also features Intel vPro with iAMT and TPM 2.0 security.

Tilt Brush is an education package from Google enabling users to paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Hall says the addition of the HTC Vive headset and Tilt Brush software means the kit is ready to use 'out-of-the-box'.

According to Hall, the kit can be used by students to simulate things that would traditionally need lots of gear. He cites the example of students sampling possible future careers, using virtual reality to test things as diverse as spray painting cars, managing cranes or using x-ray machines.

"The combination of technology can give students a realistic taste of the real-life jobs they could well be considering, rather than just talking through it or potentially taking kids off-site to experience the jobs. Used this way, VR can be used to simulate all sorts of environments," he says.

"There's also the creative side of it – which is probably more popular for the younger age groups –  letting students develop creative environments in 3D and walk around what they've created and look at it from different angles," says Hall.

The first five resellers to make target will win a VR kit. A maximum of one kit per reseller is available.

For more information click here.