Innovatia

Karen Sanders of Queensland’s XR Hub is pushing government and business to consider virtual reality as more than a party trick. QUEENSLAND IS A HUB FOR EXTENDED REALITY TECH V irtual reality (VR) technology has been

world. Augmented reality (AR) technology can overlay a simulation onto the real world—think Pokémon GO or Snapchat filters—while hybrid reality or mixed reality (MR) uses a headset that allows a user to place simulated objects in a physical space, interacting with both the real and simulated world at once. Virtual, aug- mented, and mixed reality systems all fall under the umbrella term of extended reality (XR) tech- nology, and the CEO of Queensland XR Hub, Karen Sanders, assures that it is more than a video game experience or photo editing tool.

in the news spotlight since the release of the first Oculus headset in 2016. The headset allowed users to experience video games, movies, and other media as if they formed a three-dimensional environment to walk around in. Now, the term “virtual real- ity” refers to any simulated 3D environment that provides an immersive experience for a user—gaming or otherwise. But a VR headset is not the only way to inte- grate simulated environments into the real

From the sporting and events industries to mining, Karen says extended reality adds value to businesses needing to train employees, cit- ing shorter training days, increased retention, and a shortage of trainers in key Australian sectors. Speculating that it might take a full working day to induct new employees onto a construc- tion site, the CEO says, “If that induction was hosted in virtual reality—as opposed to the tra- ditional face-to-face—you can get your train- ing time down to about half. So, it would be half a day”. This time expenditure, she says, is money to the organisation: “Imagine if you’ve got ten people attending that induction and somebody’s got to pay their wages, you save half a day’s wages and ten people can actu- ally go start meaningful work.”

Karen also advertises that employees are four times better at retaining training information conveyed via an extended reality system than via a face-to-face training session. She notes that Australia is a fine example for the efficacy of training employees with extended reality because of our lack of trainers. “The mining sector doesn’t have enough. The engineering sector doesn’t have enough,” she laments. “Nobody can get their hands on qualified train- ers, but you can have the same level of effi- cacy of a qualified trainer; that material can be delivered in VR by a much more junior person. So then, people are able to still be trained.” Extended reality systems can be used to host training sessions and deliver informa- tion for any sector. They can also be used to problem-solve: to visualise proposed building

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INNOVATIA

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