Jennifer Lastra of 360 immersive delivered a compelling presentation at the CWI Connections conference on the new trends in Virtual Reality (VR) technology pertaining to education and training. Jennifer covered a wide range of topics ranging from the difficulties in running a start-up that is introducing a newly available technology to the challenges of change management in the training and education industries.
Let’s talk a little bit about where I’ve seen, so it took me about 20 years to figure out what I wanted to be you guys here tonight, but I think it’s a lifelong, uh, progress that we’d go through, develop. I going things change our personalities change or minor change. That was one way or another. So really I’ve had the opportunity.
Um, I started my professional career in the United States military electrician, so I’ve had an opportunity to do some amazing work with technology. My career then evolved into aircraft carriers and submarines, manufacturing and Oracle. So the ability to see how, um, you know, being able to help protect our nation and our freedoms is always been something that’s been very important to me. Um, I’ve had the luxury of working with night vision technology and if anybody hasn’t ever been in the military, I’ve been able to try and make a decision.
It’s a, you know, a l a is a technology that’s been around for a very long time, but it has evolved and I’m, again, my passion has been safety, not just for our allied forces, but also our troops. Our, um, public service, so all of that really encompasses where I’ve been able to take my passions in my energy for public safety, for wanting to create a better outcome and being a contributor to that really brought me to the idea and concept is something that I always wanted to do with business and entrepreneurs and work. So I have, um, I started out like many posts a in house, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something, maybe room in accounting until I, to the Catholic classes.
Um, I dabbled a little bit as engineer when I got out of the military, um, until I took my first. Um, so really a lot of people in my path forward, but as long as you’re always wanting to be an entrepreneur, Morgan always wanted to be giving back. Really led me to embrace the opportunity of what a real central core is capable of. And for me, what being a social entrepreneur is really about is taking innovation, taking technology and trying to apply it to today’s problems. So when you turn on the news, what do you guys need to do this? Just see a lot of challenging environments. You see a lot of news stories, whether politically driven or, you know, dealing with our law enforcement, dealing with our news, um, and so the opportunity to be able to find a business in full creative business that really, um, be able to have a positive impact on some of these social issues that we’re faced with right now and what all that has led me to is the opportunity to use virtual reality technology to help start to be very creative.
Being able to start working on what can one person in one small group of like-minded people looking we do together to begin to combat some of these social issues, whether it’s through education experiences, um, a multitude of things. We, we really have these things called three 60 immersive. And we picked that name because there’s a whole world ahead of us with this new technology that’s upon us and it has been, it just get inventive, right? It’s been around for 50, 60. Really, really use to lock in for aging military medical purposes, very expensive technology to be able to integrate and use until about four, five years ago. Right? So really the opportunity to be able to begin doing experiments at the consumer level, so say foster through, um, partner is he texting devices and virtual reality headsets coming out from your systems that can actually process all of the information, that virtual reality experience generally and in finding the opportunities in a much needed environments outside of just gaming and entertainment because typically we think of virtual reality when you guys think of it very absolutely slow.
We took a little bit of a different approach coming from a 20 or a the company, our company has been around since [inaudible] and we started as a traditional marketing company and we evolved over time into digital marketing in 2d and 3d animation. And so as we evolved with technology and then we saw the onset of virtual reality and the potential for what that could do, we realized besides just being able to use it to enhance a brand for marketing purpose, Hella tell a story. We looked at it from the opportunity of being able to save lives. We looked at it as an opportunity to enhance outcomes, reduce injuries, right? So from that social awareness perspective, you know, three, four years ago what was really big in the news as the shooter situations, law enforcement’s going to shops a lot of these things and as time has gone by, when we started looking at what else was in the news right now, mental health, done all of these things. So what we’ve been able to do over the last three or four years has been quite a churn. We spent a lot of time educating people on the power of the technology and how do they use for a lot more than just trying to her a lot more than just gaming and using the ecs for sporting events and other forms of entertainment. While all those are great. What about being able to bring some of those components and put them into enhanced training and education program.
So what we’ve done leaving and to experience and I hear to over emphasize the idea of experimentation when it comes to developing something that hasn’t. There’s no playbook for virtual reality, right? OK. It was a small business owner. We have to experiment to be extremely creative with how we come up with stories. The way that you produce content in virtual reality is completely different than any type of traditional video or traditional gaming software development. And so when we talk about creativity, we look at all the different guess components that go into developing content and content. My friends is if people, if, if any of you have wondered, your virtual reality has been kind of in the news a little bit. I’m surprised definitely has taken off very much. There’s one challenge, not fair. One of the biggest challenges I would say as to why the technology hasn’t advanced in a more rapid pace is because of contents. It’s all about creating good quality content and that’s what we, that’s what we pride ourselves on, is being able to create that time. Now let’s talk a little bit about the type of content.
So from a training perspective, again, let’s go back to public service and law enforcement’s, how can you place an officer to a very, very dangerous, potentially dangerous situation and allow them to experience that situation in a safe, in a meaningful way. You can create a virtual reality experience and allows officers to go through multiple different types of scenarios in practice practice until they could get it to be muscle memory, practice it until they really feel to understand, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly without any type of repercussions or negative consequences. So we think about firefighters. How would you help those guys, especially new firefighters out, you know, coming into those fields. How about when they’re in there, a criminal justice or the first couple of years are trending? How can you really expose them to the terminal hazards so they understand what they’re getting themselves into, right? How are you going to see the career choice for yourself? Virtual reality allows people to be able to begin to experiment and that’s what we want them to do. Whether it’s, is this a good career path for me? How do I deal with this situation? Again, fear of any type of negativity, procrastinate.
Another way for using the technology to help our love working in public service is a lot of them are dealing with the politics and some situations that arise in the public. They have to deal with people from my past. I’m under the influence of on narcotics are dealing with mental illness, are suffering from some other type of learning disability or maybe they were suffering from a mild case of autism and it’s just trying to understand what somebody suffering from these types of, whether it’s other narcotics were under the influence of something versus somebody who’s having a really bad eight. How can you tell the difference of what’s really going on with that person in your agency to expose people to these types of different situations in your virtual reality headset? You actually can make that connection with somebody. I don’t know. Pence, is there anybody in here who has not her for a couple of you, so I might get a couple of like stairs, but first of all, reality, when you put a virtual reality headset is you immediately become diverse in that environment, so if you saw they were German Americans over here, you put down, I’m try, I’m jumping out of air.
Did it feel like when you jumped back, I’m going to move down your stomach drop? Yeah.
Yeah. It this sense of presence and physically being in a space. It’s remarkable, right? So you haven’t tried before. If there. There’s no medium right now that can allow that type of connection and the ability to put yourself into a scenario and get excited or get scared or get anxious. You can’t develop. That is a lot of any other meetings you know right now that’s available, so being able to use that to an advantage when you’re training somebody, you’re educating somebody on something is very profile. You want to develop them early. How do you develop empathy with it? Do you develop it because you’ve been there and done that and you can feel for somebody else, you know what that feels like. You don’t know what somebody who’s suffering from mental illnesses actually going through virtual reality. We recreate that using alive, alive experience. What I mean by there’s a couple of different types of virtual reality that can be created.
One for 60 experience. So you guys saw up here, people don’t out of airplanes or maybe the boise state football game was kind of feel like you’re part of the crowd amped up in front of them. That’s one way of creating virtual reality comes the other way is a computer generated simulation concept, right? OK. I just wanted to bridge that. They keep getting food the stairs. Um, so I guess my point is being able to relate to other people and being able to walk in somebody else’s shoes. Ask what virtual reality film out. And I was in a panel last night. I ended up, I will, virtual reality council. Does anybody heard of the Ivr to non-profit organization? Trying to promote, not trying. You’re doing a fantastic job promoting virtual reality in a panel discussion last night and the question that came up, but you know, what are some of the benefits of virtual reality?
They were came to my turn to answer that. My response is very public. It really shows the power of the technology is showing how human we all are. Even able to walk in somebody else’s shoes. Being able to understand someone else’s culture. Imagine if you don’t know what it’s like to be a Muslim girl. Being able to put a virtual reality headset on, walk around town all around. How people maybe looking at who are treating a little bit different than what’s it feels like to be somebody else. Can you start the a little bit more kind to one another when we have the ability to feel what somebody else might be feeling. So whether it’s somebody who’s suffering from a mental illness or somebody you know. When we talk about eliminating barriers of cultural bias and it’s like being a woman in technology or what it’s like being somebody with a disability in the workplace.
If we could start to really emphasize and develop a feeling for what other people go through, maybe we can make our role just a little bit better. Maybe we can get those barriers broken down and understand, and so that was one of the biggest power that it affords. You can’t teach somebody how to feel it and they can figure it out, so being able to be able to incorporate that into learning experiences, into training, into brand messaging, all of that stuff is really, really important when you’re talking about trying to capture people’s attention and really be able to perform and execute with someone asked. One of the biggest benefits that I see with technology, so I’ve talked a little bit about what my company is doing with the technology and the training and education space. I think the thing I’m most proud of that we just launched a new project and it’s called we stream vr and what that stands for, streaming double entendre.
What stream stands for? Is it an acronym of Science? Technology, robotics, engineering hearts comparable hiccups. Stem with sterile in. What this project is all about is taking girls that are in the sixth grade and have a lot of access to them because I have myself, um, but taking these girls and exposing them to the potential of stem on steroids and then we stream their interaction and I’ll talk a little bit more detail about, but then there are some books, London, but we stream all of this content on youtube for kids. We’ve got kids in the room where they’re watching youtube and watching a lot of shenanigans as a parent’s mission number one, try buy something on her into a different utility learning agenda.
Um, so for the kids it’s all about in content on youtube for the parents, grandparents or teachers, their stem-related activities and how they can bring those activities into the classroom or into the home. Because, let’s just face it, there’s a lot of teachers out. There was a lot of parents and grandparents and they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t even know where to begin in public schools right now, and I’m not going to get off on a tangent about public schools. These teachers are doing a very, very stressed and they possibly can with the resources and the education that they have. If your child doesn’t go to a charter school, the likelihood of them being exposed to the elementary school to science, technology, robotics, engineering, arts and math is very limited. I mean, you’re talking about maybe a couple hours a month. How can a company loved mine help by creating this.
To me, this is what we’re able to do is we’re able to take a call, a very diverse group of girls. I saw a girl from Haiti. I’ve got a call from Vietnam and got some girls, have got some extra girls. The custom views for girls. I started loving. My point is if we take a diverse group of girls and get them exposure at the elementary level of what the possibilities of the future possibilities. Not just of what can my career today, but really open their minds to me even when I go into, you know, um, middle school, junior high or high school to learn how to code because I’ve been able to be exposed to it a little bit. So our first episode and be creative and I was wondering if we stream vr concept was developed in our first episode was produced in 100 days.
Now some people may not understand the magnitude and being able to do something like that, but the creative process in here, we’re going to go back to creativity, experimentation using technology right there. There’s no roadmap here. Post which is their mission of giving something back to our communities specifically talking about girls in stem related activities, but if you have with this guy for being able to create something better and start from somewhere, start somewhere, giving our use more exposure to what their potential future possibly look like. I don’t know how many students are in here, but if you had an opportunity to think about all the different careers and maybe even see what a day in the life of x, Y, z role would be like. If you have that opportunity, would you have some different choices? Way? I know I would join the military, put into what I want to do when I.
it’s not the only reason, but it was a big reason. If I hadn’t been exposed to different potential careers, different things that I don’t know about, but I could be exposed to, I would have definitely found that as a, as a medicine, so when these young girls in Bergen to try 15 develop younger, but if girls have been exposed to stem related curriculum or activities by the third grade, the likelihood of them developing depressed to elementary school and then continuing your education and taking a lap dance at the junior level, junior high and into high school is significantly reduced. So we’re able to expose these young girls and right now we’re focusing on girls but you know, we will be making it all more. Who’s different right now? Focuses on the lady. But if we’re able to take them through that journey, let them still be curving.
Let them still have fun, but expose them to all the different potential ideas are first off. So have a is protocols and they’ve got the act scores and we did a live. Receives the experience of the girl building these little mini robots and then they’ve got to battle them and you know. So it was a. It was a really good experience for them and consolidate it all down to a five minute experience and now we posted onto youtube and facebook and at the same time we were able to expose the girls to what it’s like to build a robot and to learn a little bit about coding and a little bit of following instructions and things like that. We were also able to promote small business, so being able to not only helped promote this initiative, we’re also able to help small businesses and so we took it the the ability to collaborate and share information using this technology and again, we’re just experimenting restrictive.
Figure out is this something that would be beneficial out into the public domain? We believe there’s a huge opportunity here. There’s nobody else out there right now using virtual reality and the way that we are engaging our youth because what’s good for my daughter and her friends in Boise, Idaho is good for anybody else’s kids and it doesn’t matter if they live in Idaho and not live in California. Florida Canada doesn’t matter, but being able to expose them to the future potential of what could be so impactful for us and it’s amazing what these technologies us so and then it’s kind of fun. Every episode the girls are going to be able to figure that relate to whatever we’re discussing and again, our first episode and it was robots. so why not use our platform of first world reality develop emerging into something out on social media that gives us over here, but I guess this whole for using social media and so what other social challenges out there and how can this technology help develop that? How can it helps refill communication asks, how can you create better outcomes? We have a lot of ideas and we’re always looking for other people for their ideas to us as well because there’s so much good we can do with the technology and we’re really blessed. Being small is that we are either. We’re not held to any one particular industry. We can go out service, any type of organization or any type of industry to be able to look at. Let’s talk about the uh, last summer in the headlines,
So yesterday we did for the local company as subject matter experts, your whole a craft brewery. They are a star on the national circuit for their motorcycle training. Brilliant, brilliant company. And we came up with your idea of why are we moving cycle safety training where it’s a live [inaudible] experience and you’re being giant through it is not for people who never ridden a motorcycle before. It’s for people who already have a motorcycle license, but just like every body else, unless you’ve moved to a different state, have you ever gone back and thought I was ready for to drive a car? There’s something to be said for people who ride.
You don’t know what provider motorcycle, unless you’ve written what you don’t understand the hazards that are here on the road unless you’ve written one. So we can do is we take people who already have a motorcycle license and we give him enhance training and we can use subject matter expertise in order to be able to walk people and talk to people and get them to understand what we’re talking about using virtual reality technology, high speed, how are you supposed to controllers like 55 miles an hour and it’s slick out, did you just not have my car and these are what these training sessions in doing for you. Right? And so we’re able to develop a mobile APP that allows anybody anywhere who’s interested in learning and enhancing your motorcycle safety skills, right it in a mobile app. People interested can access our main mission. And our main goal is to say why are 100 percent committed to using this technology to be able to that we’re also very much socially involved with what’s going on in our communities and our youth
potential that’s in front of us with the future of not just virtual reality, but the different realities which are coming up right behind it. We’re at a point in time right now and it’s so amazing. People say, Hey, the computer, the computer is great internet when all the things the internet is allow us to do. Sometimes I think technology gets abroad deals and people saying, oh great virtual reality, you’re going to have a bunch of robots running around people. Jack, anybody missing any of those episodes? Crazy because it’s all about abuse of technology. As content creators, the one taste the most pride in is always creating content as pushing humanity for. So with that I would love to open floor to anybody has any questions whether it’s questions, clarifying questions or would like to understand more about how we use the technology, wants to understand more about the R, so I’m just going to open the door yet on a vacation, the gender, the room,
so I just had the opportunity actually a [inaudible] fast to do a presentation right off, right alongside of Osha inspector. He was tried it last year. We had two people die. The trench collapsed on and so they really wanted to get. Has to put on a training course about translating. He said, how many of you guys in the audience will sit here and listen to me go powerpoint slide on trust and for how many one experience, how to look for how to stretch before you never gave one, and what are those houses look like in a viable way to get down in the trench and it collapses on you. What that feels like.
One example of how he just recently who’s just in a live scenario there. Lots of opportunity. Um, so let’s talk a little bit about how some community colleges are beginning to incorporate that into, um, into their organizations, what you didn’t see in being able to enhance, uh, on online curriculum, an online curriculum where before logging in they’re reading content and they’re watching videos. Spoke is down to content so that they feel it and it made a judgment based on the context. If you’re able to hit our first fully our experience where let’s say you’re instructing on identification for situational awareness or how can you explain that to the video or reading something, this reality headset on and then look around for our connections to the curriculum, so much more real and you’re just so much more part of the content that not only does it resonate with you in your mind, you’re fully engaged, retention rates increase significantly, and the outcomes when you get into a situation, your muscle memories, you kick back right back in because it feels like it’s a memory that you were part of something great.
That’s some way online curriculum is being developed with virtual reality and embedded into it, and again, we talk about creating experiences and adding them into a learning and education. We’re talking about for three to five minute experiences. You’re never going to put somebody hurts your reality headset for 45 minute. You know it will come out with your. I guess the point is burning my throat significantly reduces times, is very conservative, very focused. Learning happens when the primary objectives of micro learning aren’t really sinking in and they’re not resonating to the students or the viewers. With Dr Michael Burns bridges that gap because again, it’s that feeling of connected, so we talk about creating [inaudible] marina objectives. You can really hit a home run in essence, so maybe a one hour lecture a little bit like this. Instead of 45 minutes of powerpoint lecture in a 15 minute classroom discussion, he himself a 25 or 30 minute discussion.
Everybody puts on a virtual reality headset or they’re viewing and experience on a screen. It’s like we’ve been doing up here earlier. You go through the experience when you take the headset off and then what did you see? If you notice this and did you see that and you’re bringing back in that whole dialogue and keeping the class engaged, but giving him really something that they no longer have to think in their head of like think, I think this is what they’re trying to say and what they’re trying to convey. The feeling in your heart that don’t follow through most cost-effective are out there for someone wanting to get high or I want you to build me a house. How much is it going to cost us? So it’s kind of that same concept if, um, it depends what you’re looking for, right? And looking for a three story, two-car garage, backyard.
So great question. Here’s what we’re doing right now with a lot of those issues were creating pilot projects, very small, small scale projects that they can then bring into the classroom and experiments. But so let’s talk about, and I don’t want to grow at another university, but one I can talk about the University of Utah, they have an entire hazardous material or for trader program and what they’re doing is they’re using virtual reality and they’re integrating integrating it into their curriculum. And then instead of instructor saying, OK, it’s 2:00 in the afternoon, we just got a phone call, but there’s a chemical spill and the rear rear road stations and there’s two people laying on the floor. The wind is blowing in from stuff and you know, instead of a tabletop exercise, we’re going through a verbal exercise. You’re able to actually put in a virtual reality experience in say, every single hazard for potential hazards they see within his m, c, tell me what you see once you to be mindful.
Right? Something like that. That’s a program that we’ve been working on for about a year. We just built them in an APP and the R for I think four different experiences that are ultimately going to create for them and that price range and it’s a mobile APP, right? So it’s not just for the students, it’s also for the public. So that’s kind of a I purposed, but that’s in the range of off 15, $20,000. The majority of that expense with the mobile APP. And then you add libraries of content within the mobile APP. So everything is archived and cataloged. Very nice and very able to access on the name. I’m sorry. Well, and because everybody says, oh, these technology is getting so expensive. We’re not here. Just write to drive prices. What we’re here to do is drive value into, again, so our company is uniquely positioned to once again to be able to do that, whether it’s custom content or once you’ve created a reality that they are computer generated simulation or a gaming environment. What’s really great about that happy environment and you can just a. He needs different content in there, but at some point learning is learning and experiences from experience, how you do things and now she does these. All you have to do is just shoot you off. Maybe some of the verbiage for some of the. Some of the points that are being me about critical skill though, right? It’s all about thinking is all about the time. What do you see, what you do next? What should you be aware of this case of to technology,
clarify your wanting to integrate that into the interview,
the workplace safety, transportation, safety. Those were. Those are one components. Absolutely. Even something as simple as today, writing curriculum we’ve talked about as we’ve, like I said, done motorcycle safety training. We talked about able to do something for the young drivers and create content for that as well. The opportunities are it really good use cases for the technology where you need to be aware of her surroundings and driving. Didn’t math at one that was near and dear in my heart. I lost a brother and their contract. So anything you can do to make our youth, anybody on roadways where it’s not just me, the one driving the other people around me that need to be aware of what’s going on as well. So that’d be a great business case is um, the biggest accidents that occur have to do with transportation. Um, and so a big component of Osha regulations is application safety. Um, so there’s a lot of these cases in capability to be able to use the technology for interactions help me.
So right now we have, what we do is we have five in-house personnel then able to do in order to keep our overhead is closed the can, which keeps our costs low, which allows us to keep our opportunities for other companies to experiment. Exact cost to them. Low is we outsource and we bring in contractors to help develop content as we have in flow with the technology and the demand for us right now and what I mean by outsourcing and keep our town local up going overseas or anything like that. Everything is done here and we are always looking for opportunities to keep our students here in Idaho and use that as a potential platform to develop their skills while they’re here at the community college right now. Um, and they have some software or they have some coding experience to have to go and experience. So creative writing experience. Um, we try and foster all the staff that we use. The freelance creative only temporary.
Can you repeat the question? She’s asking how can creative writing help us with content creation in virtual reality to everything we do has to be creative. You have to all different types of ways to create content right now. And so it’s creative writing components of being able to tell a story. And so being able to tell that story to new and innovative way, how we produce the content is one thing. But we’re, because we did so many different types of industries, we’re always looking for content creators, for creative writers to help us bring that story line. We’re doing free Friday, but not as good as somebody else who has been trained in it and going to school for it and no sentencing. So marketing, creating a story room up, focused on reducing their story and so many creative writers and creatives, thinkers, innovative thinkers to help us bring that story to life in virtual reality.
Any other questions? Did. Did, did you guys get a couple nuggets of information? Was this, was this helpful? It useful? I appreciate everybody’s time, but I just want to thank you again for the opportunity to come and speak. And if anybody has any questions about our company or any inkling, discuss, please feel free to come up. How thing are also for the award being out and thank you so much for sharing your projects, your connections projects with me. And, um, you know, I cannot over emphasize enough degree of, inspired by some of the privacy side to continue your education because what that does is it opens so many doors that you just don’t even know right now. Experiment. There’s no wrong answers out there. Just keep trying. Just keep, just keep going, keep create. Thank you.
