Tonari

In our widespread and deeply interwoven society, technology has to play a role in expanding natural human connection. We urgently need to explore and build ways to reduce the heavy environmental costs of air travel, and the time and stress of commuting, to be kinder to ourselves and our planet. We also need ways to increase emotional connectivity — among families, colleagues, or classmates — when we are forced to be physically apart, as so many of us have experienced during this pandemic. tonari is a unified installation that seamlessly connects two spaces as if you are in the same room. Unlike video calls, it provides an immersive, life-sized experience that brings you face-to-face with true eye contact, complete presence, no lag, and no learning curve. In businesses and workplaces, it enables distributed teams and management to be flatter, more trusting and collaborative, more time and human-resource efficient, and more environmentally sustainable. In schools, it enables educational experiences that cross urban, rural, and global cultural divides, expanding access to opportunities and developing greater social consciousness. In cafes, community spaces, eldercare, and homes, it enables deeper and more intimate relations, and extends our reach to provide greater emotional care for loved ones when physical closeness isn’t an option. tonari is a 10-year vision and effort that begins with focused technical research and development, advances into product development and operational scaling in early markets, and later achieves economies of scale to produce accessible infrastructure for all people everywhere.