ANI is a niche VR/metaverse access + memory + existence + legacy platform for people of any age whose body, health, means or circumstances cut them off from the world — older, ill, bed-bound, physically disabled, travel- or financially-restricted, isolated. With a VR headset they travel a world they can no longer reach, return to a memory, and exist as their own character alongside other people. We do not promise a cure. We promise comfort, access, scale and personalization — and an honest, measurable pilot. Built in Antalya, Türkiye, for a European consortium.
What ANI is
A person lives as far as they can still go.
At some point the paths begin to close — for some it is age, for others an illness, an accident, a condition present from birth. The world stays where it is, but the road to it is cut. Three kinds of path close: the path to a place (the places you cannot reach), the path to the past (memories slipping away), and the path to a person (bonds breaking). Memories do not fade and people do not move away — the road to them closes. ANI reopens those roads: using Gaussian Splatting, a modern 3D reconstruction technique, we build photorealistic, navigable places from real photographs; with a headset on, a person stands inside that place, looks around, walks through it.
Three pillars
One pillar for each of the three paths that close.
"Your body can't go, yet you are there." Experience a world you cannot reach — a sacred journey, a distant city, a museum, the village where you were born — by moving through it from the inside.
"That moment was not erased; you can return to it." Re-live a memory inside a navigable scene rebuilt from a single old photograph, in a deliberate "dream-cloud" aesthetic.
"You are beside someone again." Exist as a character free of the body's limits, meet real people, form a bond — and, if you wish, leave a trace after you.
The heart of the platform
Most virtual worlds are empty because no one stays in them for long. ANI's thesis is this: access- and travel-restricted people may, out of need, spend many hours here — which can mean an always-live population. The "no critical mass, dead world" problem of other metaverses turns, here, into an advantage. On top of that, people without physical limits — the young, volunteers, researchers, families — find a reason to join. The intended outcome is an intergenerational bridge: a grandchild who cannot visit in person can meet a grandparent in this world. There is early evidence that intergenerational virtual contact may reduce loneliness (IJERPH 2022) — not a proven fact.
How it works · deployment model
ANI runs inside a partner's existing care or community settings — no new building, no heavy infrastructure. A portable hardware kit, a short companion-supervised session, and a programmable schedule.
Photoreal, navigable scenes reconstructed from a person's own photos via Gaussian Splatting — or a ready-made world to travel to. Where data is sparse, synthetic completion is used: always clearly labeled, never presented as a faithful memory.
Seated, short, voluntary, nurse/staff-supervised. A personal memory-place, a guided visit, or a shared social space. Comfort-first profile (no sudden camera, teleport-based movement); the exit/stop protocol is always ready.
Programmable and repeatable: it begins in one setting and, only if pilot data is positive, becomes a multi-site programme. It opens to scale an experience a therapist cannot physically carry from room to room.
Not clinical superiority — comfort, access, scale, personalization.
Comfort and access. VR brings a programmable, repeatable, supervised experience to a bed-bound or mobility-limited person in an institution — one no companion could otherwise deliver. Tolerance is documented for short, seated, low-motion sessions. The deliberately soft, "dream-like" look is not a flaw: low fidelity reduces cybersickness and cognitive load. GS is still a maturing technology and we say so.
Scale, the moment that matters, and the live population. A scene built from a person's own life opens a door a generic environment never can — and the same pipeline reproduces it across many settings, faithfully and at cost. The real people inside those scenes are what make it a platform rather than a single-use tool.
Scientific grounding
The only frame worthy of a research consortium and its evaluators: where the evidence ends, the claim ends too.
Digital continuity
The EXIST pillar invites the boldest question: what if a person wished to turn their own digital trace into a legacy that outlives them? We do not hide this vision — we write it out in full — but we do not decide it alone. There is no product about to ship: no layer of ANI goes live without the approval of the relevant institutions, the state, academia and ethics boards. So we put the whole possibility on the table as an option spectrum — from "no continuity axis at all", through a consent-based living digital will, a bereaved-family commemoration model, an evolving digital self, up to an intergenerational living-legacy archive — and we delegate the choice to the approving stakeholders. ANI imposes none of these; the approval chain selects.
Consortium & readiness
EU research funding is built for multi-country consortia (Horizon Europe Cluster 1 typically requires at least three independent legal entities from three countries). An early-stage SME's realistic role is partner / technology provider / work-package lead — not coordinator. We say this plainly: it is how the consortium gets funded.
The ask
We are not asking a reviewer to believe an overclaim. We are proposing a measurable pilot and a consortium fit, sequenced from most accessible to most ambitious.
| Pathway | What we propose | Fit & timing |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Eurostars / 1709 | A joint R&D project with one EU SME partner, ANI eligible as an innovative SME, targeting a VR access + memory experience for care and community settings. | Most accessible near-term EU step; TÜBİTAK national support in place. |
| 2. Horizon Cluster 1 | Join an aging / accessibility / digital-health consortium as VR technology provider / WP lead; we help recruit a clinical lead and a care end-user partner via the Türkiye NCP. | Destination 1 calls (e.g. HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01; a 2027 neurodegenerative clinical call). Best thematic fit. |
| 3. EIC Accelerator | Single-company application once clinical evidence and a scalable, network-effect model mature; grant + equity, Türkiye fully eligible for blended finance. | Mid-term, product-maturity gated; EIT Health validation can bridge to it. |
All programme amounts, topic codes and deadlines must be confirmed from the official call text; the 2027 neurodegenerative call figure (≈ €10M/project) is from a draft work programme and is to be confirmed.
Honesty boundary
"I know this place."
A continent is growing older, and many of its people — at any age — are cut off from the world. The paths that close need not stay closed. We work for the single moment when a person's eyes light up in recognition — and we are ready to measure it, honestly, with the right partners.