David Cleverdon: Welcome to the 360immersive LiveCast. We’re here with Jennifer Lastra, also of 360immersive.
Jennifer Lastra: Hi.
David Cleverdon: So 360immersive is launching a new platform called UShareVR and recently, in fact just this last week, the company presented the platform in London, United Kingdom. Can you tell me a little bit about the UShare platform, what it is, what the features are, what it does? And then let’s talk a little bit about the event.
Jennifer Lastra: So the UShareVR platform is really an opportunity for organizations that are looking to capture training, their own training curriculum. It gives them a platform in order to go out and capture training – oh, sorry – capture content and then upload it, editing it, creating experiences that are custom specifically for their organization, and then being able to keep the content secure and downloadable to organize – other people within their organization who have a right to have access to that content.
David Cleverdon: So what types of organizations might use the UShare platform?
Jennifer Lastra: Well, so we’re specializing right now in emergency response personnel, medical folks. One of the things that came up in London that was really unique that we hadn’t considered was the ability to use the technology for forensics training, meaning you could go into a scene that had – and go and capture all the imagery of kind of what happened after the fact and then take it back to the students and allow them to kind of walk through the scene, which was a unique perspective we hadn’t considered before. So, another industry that the technology could potentially support.
David Cleverdon: So the advantage of VR, or virtual reality, is that it actually puts somebody right in the scene of the training content, that they feel more connected to it. Can you tell me a little bit, based on the organizations that you’ve talked to here in the United States versus we talked to people from the United Kingdom, from the Middle East, basically all over that sector? How did they receive virtual reality as a brand-new training tool?
Jennifer Lastra: Well, I think mostly in the U.K. and some of the organizations that we met with, they have the same challenges that we do here in the United States, which are really focused on budgets and having availability of funding now as opposed to, you know, 24 months away, which is kind of typical when you’re looking at the – at least the state and federal level here in the United States. So I think they see the value. There’s a tremendous financial value overseas and they have the opportunity – because this whole platform is based off of affordability and scalability, they see the potential.
We still need to go throughout vetting process, of course, but the organizations that I’ve spoken with have connections into the Ministry of Interior and the MODs over in the U.K. and in the Middle East. So very well received and, yeah, I think – I think we’ll have some good direction and strategic alliances being built, you know, at least the beginning blushes of it over the next several months. So it’s exciting.
David Cleverdon: So the UShare platform is somewhat unique as it is based around creating virtually – virtual reality with live experiences and a lot of – sorry. Technical issue. A lot of companies are using computer-generated simulations. Can you speak a little bit about the advantage from an affordability and a real-life perspective in using live experiences with virtual reality, or VR, and with the UShare platform? What’s the advantages of using live video, real experiences, over maybe computer-generation?
Jennifer Lastra: Oh, sure. So live experiences allow organizations to go in and capture their own imagery. So it’s their people wearing their uniforms in their workplaces where computer-generated imagery, you can get some of that same capability, but it’s not repeatable. You could do a lot more live experiences obviously for – you can create a lot more content using live experiences than computer-generated, especially for the cost difference, I guess. You know, if you need to change – if you have a change in your practices or your procedures, you’re able to go in and edit that content and kind of drop it back in whereas computer-generated imagery obviously you’d have to have somebody come in and custom do that for you.
David Cleverdon: So the bottom line with the UShare platform, it’s affordable, it’s scalable, it’s something that organizations can then train using this new technology themselves. And that’s, I mean, that sounds really simple, but yet nobody else is doing that. Why is that?
Jennifer Lastra: Oh, that’s a great question, David. I think the majority of organizations are still looking at this technology as a gaming and entertainment and they really haven’t seen the benefits of being able to use it for training. I think that’s a huge opportunity for our organization to be able to share the platform because at the end of the day really what we’re trying to accomplish at 360immersive is give training personnel a better tool, giving trainers the ability to make training exciting again, and hopefully generate better outcomes.
And we’re going to be working to build statistics behind the benefits of using immersive technology for training purposes. So I think the potential for the technology and using it for training is going to continue to evolve and I think it’s going to be, I mean, it’s going to be much more powerful than PowerPoint. So we’re looking forward to the continuous outcomes for organizations and trainers and people being trained.
David Cleverdon: One last thought there. I know that we had a number of different organizations and events come up and speak to us, including the BBC. Do we see in the future for 360immersive maybe a European office or a Middle East office or your European franchises? There seemed to be so much excitement that it seems like it potentially could be a natural.
Jennifer Lastra: I think the great thing about the UShareVR platform and kind of where we are right now is that it’s cloud-based. We can be anywhere doing business with anybody. I’m not sure that we need to – my vision for the company right now doesn’t sit with opening offices internationally, but definitely looking for strategic alliances and partnerships is an absolute opportunity for us that I’m – that we’re going to develop and look into further. So I can see that aspect of it definitely.
David Cleverdon: Well, I’d like to thank you for spending a bit of time with us on the 360immersive LiveCast. Jennifer, thank you for the discussion.
Jennifer Lastra: Sure.
David Cleverdon: And we look forward to future discussions.
Jennifer Lastra: Bye. Thanks.
