The best things about consumer technology are that it has no national boundaries and it provides everyday solutions to life's conundrums, said Vincent Yang, co-founder and CEO of Vancouver's H+ Technology.

The holographic technology company, two of whose three co-founders were international students from China, has received accolades from the local community in its three years of existence.

It won "Most Disruptive Innovation" and "Company of the Year" at the NextBC 2015 annual award show on June 6.

Earlier this month, the company's Kickstarter campaign to fund the launch of Holus, a 3D holographic tabletop platform, broke its initial fundraising target of C$50,000 in just 19 minutes.

H+ Technology was co-founded in 2012 by Yang, CFO Yamin Li and CTO Dhruv Adhia, all former international students and graduates of the Master of Digital Media joint program by UBC, SFU, BCIT and Emily Carr University.

Yang and Li, who came to the program from mainland China, chose to stay in Vancouver after their graduation because they found a lot of local support for digital media industries.

"We did our research at the best environment for incubating a start-up, and you just want to be where the opportunity is," Yang said. "Vancouver is full of talent, and gave us the right opportunity at the right time to incubate our ideas and find resources."

"Apart from funding and tax benefits, there’s assistance from the local government to the technological industries in market research and planning, so we focus not just on growth, but also developing good ideas," Li explained. "And of course, Vancouver global connections as North America’s Pacific gateway is valuable to an entrepreneur."

The multicultural environment of Vancouver was yet another attraction.

"There are very few cities in the world where you can meet people from every country and learn about the needs of their markets and their people," Yang said. "This kind of environment is an absolutely necessary learning tool to a startup."

Since the company’s founding, which Yang describes as an "extracurricular activity in [the] basements and garages" of the co-founders while they worked other full-time jobs, H+ has grown into a young team of around 20 employees. A number of them were former international students from China and elsewhere, who can bring expertise and markets knowledge from overseas communities.

Yang noted that with a team like theirs, "language is often a hurdle". He recalled that as a student and new entrepreneur, he had faced challenges marketing products using a second language. "Still, we spend a lot of time improving [our language abilities] and developing other strengths into a complete package.

"You want to look for the 'best fit’ for your team rather than absolute strongest,” he added. "We spend a lot of time getting to know our team members' personalities, ideals and passions, so even where there’s cultural difference, we’re united in our vision.”

The vision, according to the founders, has two components. The first is to erase "the boundary that still exists between humans and the technology we encounter in everyday life, which we still need to interface using certain devices," Yang said.

This is the premise behind products like Holus, whose interfaces includes 360-degree projections and motion tracking. This could lead to interactive gaming, 3D teleconferencing or presentations that allow presenters to change slides and figures with a wave of the hand.

The second part of the company’s vision is to create products with practical value to human society. "Humans should not have to be controlled by technology, but should enjoy the benefits it can provide, Yang said.

Yang said that the "Magic Room," an interactive holographic playroom that H+ designed and built for young patients at Ronald McDonald House BC, is a meaningful project for this reason. "We were not asking how [this project] could benefit the company, but simply how to provide enjoyment to the children and for society.

"Speaking as a relative newcomer to Canada myself, I think that wherever you go in the world, what you want understand is the local community’s values and how you can make a positive contribution toward it,” hesaid. "There are lots of ways to make money, but an entrepreneur should remember they are a member of society and should think of how they can add value to society.”

Like many students and entrepreneurs from China, Yang said he hoped that what he learns could be helpful to China. And, according to Li, H+ is "definitely keeping a close watch on technology incubators and entrepreneurial hubs in China, in order to look for opportunities to develop there.”

In September, 2012, the co-founders were invited by the government of Jiangxi province to give presentations at the Communications University of China (CUC), Shanghai Institute of Design and Nanchang High Tech Development Zone. A Chinese delegation from Jiangxi paid a reciprocal visit to H+ in Vancouver two months later.

H+ also collaborated with CUC School of Animation and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) in May 2013, on a 4-D box project called "Holo Planet", created to help CPAWS’s animal conservation campaign.

The company's connections with Chinese companies are still in the early stages, but Yang said that "the Chinese market has a lot of latent potential, and the company will continue to deepen its relationship with Chinese enterprises, investors and related industries”.