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Alif Jakir

Omnidisciplinary inventor

philosopher–scientist–futurist

Hi, I’m Alif—welcome to my site. My work sits at the intersection of artificial and organic intelligence: how minds arise in neural and machine substrates, and how we can design systems that amplify critical thinking and partnership with humans rather than substituting for them. The full layout, contact links, and research sections load with the interactive site.

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LifeInBetweenXR

MIT Reality Hack 2023 · Semifinalist · “Life in Between”: hyper-local MR, 3D mesh city, transit-aware discovery

Devpost (gallery + submission + Try it out)

LifeInBetweenXR was our mixed-reality entry for MIT Reality Hack 2023. The experience “Life in Between” lets people see hyper-local environments around them using 3D mesh data of nearby buildings, geometry tied to the real world rather than a flat map slice. We leaned into public transit as the backbone of daily life: map services and amenities along the bus or subway line you are already on, so detours and discoveries stay on-route and small businesses on those corridors get a fairer shot at . The team placed semifinalist in a field of 200+ teams.

Why “in between”

Cities compress huge amounts of history and utility into street-level detail that 2D maps glaze over. We wanted to strengthen sense of place and community mesh (who shares your line, your stop, your block) by making buildings and venues legible in 3D and by nudging discovery toward the routes people actually ride. The Devpost pitch also framed it as supporting community health: deeper interconnection among locals and clearer access to what exists near them, including in neighborhoods that are easy to skip on a generic map.

Use cases we called out

  • Community building: shared context along shared corridors
  • Tourism and local : explore the mesh above your line
  • Educational and historical exploration: architecture and story of the built environment
  • Real estate and property management: spatial literacy at neighborhood scale

What shipped in the demo

The submission described several concrete modes (names from our hackathon build); see Devpost for screenshots and video.

  • Search: Wayfinding-style search with Google Maps API results, filtered toward locations near subway and bus stops and along the line you care about, so planning stays convenient to your commute.
  • Bookmarks: Offline-leaning suggestions along your current line; 3D previews of places on that line; save favorites or “visit next” stops (demo focused on categories such as cafes and gyms near the rider's stop).
  • MapExplore: Esri ArcGIS-driven 3D city visualization so riders can explore what sits above their route while they move through it, the “life between ” stations.
  • Settings: Radius, geolocation, and experimental UI toggles to tune the experience.
  • DolbySocialStream: Stream from your location and a message with a link to a Dolby live stream, aimed at lightweight location-based social connection.

Stack and hardware

Per our Devpost listing: Unity 2021.3.16f1, Android Studio, ARCore, Esri ArcGIS / 3D mapping SDK, Vive XR Elite passthrough mixed reality, and Dolby for the social streaming piece. Tags on the page also highlighted Android, ARCore, Esri, Unity, and Vive XR.

Team

Sola Babatunde (Olusola Joshua Babatunde), Yanxiu Luo, Diego Saldivar, and Alif Jakir: a cross-functional build across mobile MR, GIS, UX, and integration in a single weekend cycle.

What I contributed

On Devpost I summarized my focus as Unity, ArcGIS / spatial data, and design ideation: turning the “life between” concept into something we could demo (mesh-backed locality, transit-logical search, and a readable 3D exploration loop) alongside teammates owning complementary parts of the app.

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