Michael O'Reilly - Next World

Blog Archives

22nd February 2022

Next World invited to Austrade’s San Francisco Landing Pad program

Digital innovation and immersive tech in the workplace has been a rapidly growing space for the past few years, both here in Australia and overseas. A key factor for many Australian scaleups has been the support offered by Austrade’s global Landing Pad program – a program designed to provide assistance to local companies looking to break into the global market.

We are delighted to have accepted an invitation from Austrade to participate in the San Francisco based program this year. Throughout the month of March, Next World will setup an operational base inside the bustling technological hub of San Francisco, during the peak of Web 3.0 evolution. This new workspace will position Next World next to other innovators, service providers, technology investors and established companies, allowing us to mingle and draw upon a rich environment of skills and talent. Additionally to the workspace, introductions to the Austrade customer networks, partners and contacts will be made, as well as the opportunity for our team to attend seminars and workshops offering insights on capitalising in the lucrative US market.

In preparation for the trip, Next World Founder & CEO Michael O’Reilly had this to say.. “Web 3.0, the Metaverse and skilling the workforce are converged at the perfect time for Next World. Our Localisation software engine is allowing us to operate no matter what language is spoken, perfectly supporting our business model”.

On the back of our successful entry into the U.K. and UAE markets last year, this offering from Austrade directly aligns with our ready to go US market strategy.

31st January 2022

The Future of Work in 2022 and Beyond.

As the ever-changing digital landscape continues to evolve, the physical and online worlds are converging at an exceptional rate – offering an endless set of new and exciting opportunities. The word ‘metaverse’ has been buzzing across the globe since Facebook changed their name to ‘Meta,’ inspiring the race towards building an immersive world. This futuristic hub houses a robust arcade of gamification, crypto trading and non-fungible tokens (NFT’s), with blockchain technology and decentralisation at the core. So, how will VR impact the future of the workforce?

The Arrival of Web 3.0

Within the span of a half-generation, we’ve seen the internet evolve from a dial-up connection allowing you to surf information online, to a hyper-personalised social sphere of content creation and rapid shareability. As Next World now traverses into Web 3.0 territory, virtual and augmented realities are redefining how individuals interact with content and navigate the digital jungle. New waves of possibility are set to be unleashed within all sectors of society, as the nature in which individuals collaborate, communicate, and learn is completely transformed. This revolutionary concept goes beyond the consumption of information as we know it and allows the user to experience information within an immersive learning playground.

A Culture of Safety in 2022

Living in a pandemic-active world has highlighted our dependence on technology to interact and engage with the world around us. As universities, schools and enterprises seek to bridge the gap between teaching and communicating via distance, leaders are looking to the future now more than ever to support fruitful growth and development.

For example, global manufacturer and distributor of earthmoving and mining equipment, Komatsu Australia, recently adopted Next World technology to train and upskill their RTOs in line with the world-wide movement towards more effective technology, as they drive towards their goal of zero harm.

As traditional learning on its own falls short of effectively engaging staff and meeting demand beyond geographic bounds, immersive technologies are no longer a ‘nice to have.’ Creating a culture of innovation, safety and transparency has become essential to paving a more effective and efficient way forward.

VR for Workplace Training

The good news is, the solution is here – enabling organisations to take new ground in 2022 with the utilisation of virtual reality learning content. We’ve already seen an uptake from innovative companies like Mars, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) and Newcrest Mining using VR technology to train their staff on the job.

Next World’s current off-the-shelf and bespoke learning experiences can support varying industries. For example, with the opportunity to superimpose dangerous work instances and crisis situations for staff in high-risk industries, Next World can effectively teach employees about a risk without exposing them to danger. This allows an employee to identify hazards, test reflex response times and gain situational understanding of a risk – while ensuring they return home safely to their family. This is critical for risk mitigation.

Manual Handling VR Training — Next World Manual Handling VR Learning Experience

As more and more companies train their staff via distance, VR provides a seamless and cost-effective solution that is 85% more effective in ensuring employee engagement and knowledge retention. Research also highlights that VR learners are 4x faster to train in the classroom, 275% more confident to apply skills learned and 3.75x more emotionally connected to the content (PWC, 2020).

The future is now, and it’s time to think beyond the traditional and physical construct of training. The possibilities to explore an unlimited world of teaching, learning and communicating exists and is guiding the way forward.

To learn more about Next World’s learning experiences, head here.

20th January 2022

Successful integration of VR into Accredited Training

I am often asked “how do you integrate VR into traditional training programs, such as an Accredited course”? This is a great question and there are actually many options and ways to integrate VR into such courses. Here are 2 ways we’ve seen it done successfully:

Option 1 – Use VR to enrich and enhance the learning program.

Don’t replace anything, keep the course framework while adding in a VR component. Typically we’ve found that roughly 30 minutes of VR within a full day accredited course can add a lot of value. A lot of the time, a full day course will include half day theoretical and half day of practical. If you have a large class size, anytime over 4 participants really, there can be a lot of dead time for the trainer/assessor and participants that can be put to better use by rotating participants between the practical and VR experiences of relevance.

So the participants will be divided into smaller groups when doing the practical elements of the training. One group is keenly supervised completing the practical while the other group completes an engaging VR experience. Then they are rotated through. If they weren’t completing this approach, participants would ordinarily be standing around achieving very little.

We’ve seen this used to great effect in critical safety courses like confined space, working at heights, fire extinguish, manual handling and numerous others where there are often large participant numbers, a single trainer/assessor and a blend of theory and practical.

This type of approach allows the training program to hit its performance and evaluation requirements as set through Accredited standards, but to add extra value for participants. We’ve found that participants report a more enjoyable training experience, a feeling they learned more and reports that they feel like they participated in something innovative.

Next World’s Confinded Spaces Learning Experience

Option 2 – Map the course and issue micro credentials.

In this case, we’ve worked with companies who have been looking to gain maximum effect from their integration of VR. As such, they’ve taken the VR experience, mapped it to competency criteria, identified the elements that map into the accredited training package and then removed those elements from the subsequent class or practical delivery components. This has resulted in no additional time required to train participants and the trainer/assessor work burden being reduced. Essentially, the VR package, which may have say 5 of the 20 performance elements that are ordinarily a part of the training package are subsequently removed from the theory and practical and delivered through VR instead.

Accredited training providers are always interested to add new value for their trainees. Whether that be through compressing knowledge pathways, reducing course duration without compromising qualit or trough adding innovation. We’ve found that these two options really easy ways to start a VR and innovation journey with Accredited training without any real risk to the business.

14th July 2021

Next World VR Training

Next World offers intelligently designed and engineered virtual reality learning experiences on a subscription basis that not only materially improves outcomes, but also opens a rich data gateway to the individual and organisation.

Virtual reality experiences provide a fully immersive experience in a safe and secure environment allowing employees to be trained in manual handling, hazard identification, excavator safety, fire hazards, working at heights, confined space, chainsaw safety and our newest learning experience fire extinguisher.

Off the Shelf Learning Experiences

Manual Handling

Manual handling is the leading cause of injuries and workplace compensation claims. Next World’s manual handling experience teaches employees the best and safest manual handling practices that should be applied in the workplace. Participants can apply their understanding of tasks as they complete the experiences, showing detailed animations of both the impact of safe and unsafe manual handling practices. Next World’s manual handling learning experience:

Identity’s issues relating to manual handling
Practices that can be done to make a situation more efficient
Identifying which part of the body is most at risk with wrong lifting techniques.
Recognising where the solution lies on the hierarchy of control
Safe lifting techniques

Hazard Identification

Next World’s virtual reality training makes it easy to maintain competency in workplace safety, protecting against the risk of serious injury or fatality. Minimise the risk associated with on-site training methods, in an office and construction site, allowing your employees to be assessed on their understanding of what makes the task a hazard and how the hazard can be minimised through the hierarchy of control.

Undertake a series of risk management assessment, identifying level of risk, procedures and control to be put in place. The learning experience includes:

Detailed introduction
Plan and prepare risk control
Assess risks and identify unacceptable risk
Identify, assess and implement risk treatments
Complete record and reports
Hazard register
Hazard identification
Risk assessment

Excavator Safety

Excavators intermix with below ground infrastructure, people at ground level and electrical infrastructure often above eye view. Our Excavator Safety Learning Experience assists participants in completing pre-start safety checks. Put yourself in the driver’s seat of an excavator and operate it with simulation-like precision and accuracy. Learn how to undertake and review pre-start and pre-operation processes and ensure they operate the equipment safely and with an awareness of hazards. In addition to making sure the user knows how to correctly operate an excavator, the experience also teaches the user how to safely ready an excavator for transportation on a trailer and the correct use of tie-down equipment.

Fire Hazards

Fire hazards are a major risk in any workplace. Next World’s fire hazards learning experience takes you through:

Characteristics of fire: Participants will learn why these hazards exist and why it is importance to recognise the characteristics of fire.
Types of fuel: Many fuel types can cause a fire. Learn about the six different classes of fuel and certain objects belonging to each class.
Equipment used to manage fire hazards: It is important to ensure fire equipment in the workplace is available and in working order. Learn how/why this equipment is essential if a fire incident occurs in your workplace.

Be assessed on identifying hazards relating to fire and fire safety in the workplace. The experience will also monitor the way the situation is assessed, the effectiveness throughout and how you answer the provided questions.

Working at Heights

Refresh your employees to safely work at height within 20 minutes with advanced virtual reality technology. The learning experience includes:

An in-depth hazard detection module. Allow the user to spot hazards that could pose serious injury or even death to both yourself or other workers in the experience, assess the risk and make sure that the correct control measures will be put in place.
PPE testing
An assessment on how to safely conduct work at a height, focusing on scissor lift height work, along with training in how to prepare for heights work.

Confined Space Entry

Undertaking Next World’s Confined Space Learning Experience, users will get to use and inspect a variety of tools and PPE equipment to ensure it is ready for use.

Assess your ability to perform a realistic confined space scenario
Understand how incorrect methods can cause injury
Respond to danger within a confined space.

6th May 2021

VR Learning and Development in Organisations

Workplace training is becoming ineffective and costing organisations large amounts of time and money. In 2016, organisations spent $359 billion globally on workplace training, but was it all worth it?

75% of 1,500 managers surveyed from across 50 organizations were dissatisfied with their company’s Learning & Development (L&D)
70% of employees state they do not acquire skills needed to successfully do their jobs
Only 12% of employees apply new skills learned in L&D programs to their jobs

Harvard Business Review, 2019

But have you ever wondered why employees are not getting the most out of these Learning and Development programs?

1. Learning for the Wrong Reasons
Today employees are often required to learn unchanging topics, on a schedule and at a time when it tolerates little relevance to the role, resulting in poor learning results. These poor learning results and lack of knowledge are having a significant impact on injury and fatality rates in the workplace, particularly within the construction industry. However, new emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality learning are allowing organisations to see a substantial improvement in learning outcomes, decreasing injuries and fatalities in the workplace.

Virtual Reality learning allows employees to learn when it best suits them, strengthening one’s focus and motivation to learn while being applied to real-world scenarios. Virtual Reality Learning also aligns better with training objectives, teaching employees’ specific skills and knowledge relevant to their job duties and responsibilities.

2. We forget what we’ve learned
German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus established studies of memory in the late 19th Century, concluding with his discovery of “The Forgetting Curve.” He found that if new information isn’t applied, we’ll forget about 75% of it after just six days. However, Virtual Reality Learning is proven to increase employee engagement by up to 85% and improve knowledge acquisition through gamification of learning, achieving higher assessment scores of 93% compared to 73% with e-learning.

In addition, Virtual Reality Learning is proven to result in better retention rates – up to 80% one year after training, compared to 20% just one week after traditional training. This data demolishes the low statistics of workplace training and results in a better training outcome. Are your training methods allowing your employees to retain a high amount of information?

3. Use it or lose it
In alignment with Ebbinghaus’ study our brains quickly forget what we don’t use. Incorporating new learnings into your workplace training is one way to retain knowledge with another being spaced repetition (material being reviewed in gradual increasing intervals of roughly one day, two days, four days, eight days etc..), which demonstrates a solid link between the exposure of information and knowledge retention. Studies show that by using spaced repetition, we can remember approximately 80% of what we learn after 60 days. Using this methodology alongside Virtual Reality Learning will significantly help review material as well as reducing costs for organisations.

4. The Changing World – Virtual Reality Learning
With today’s fast moving work landscape and emerging technologies, people must adapt rapidly to changing circumstances. Lean Learning is a method which includes the Learning & Development (L&D) process of getting the right learning, to the right audience, at the right time, in the right quantity to achieve a faultless work flow.

Applying Lean Learning through Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality can massively assist with the Lean Leaning process through learning the core of what employees need, successfully applying it to real world situations and receiving immediate feedback to refresh and refine employees’ understanding.

Apply to real world situations
Virtual Reality applies a methodology internally, bringing real world situations to life and apply what’s learned in real-time to deliver successful business outcomes.For example, our Working at Heights Virtual Reality training package can safely induct and train employees to gain confidence to work at heights in a stress-free environment, with the freedom to make decisions without life-threatening consequences.

Personalize content
Next World’s Virtual Reality learning provides organisations the opportunity to personalise specific content. Our ‘Bespoke Experiences’ tailors’ content to every business need, learning style and delivery method to ensure training outcomes are improved.

Offer micro courses
Virtual Reality Learning Experiences are short bite-sized learning opportunities, providing refresher training on topics relevant to an employee’s immediate job duties and responsibilities. Our VR Learning Experiences are made to deliver safe, accessible experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving employers peace of mind knowing their staff are getting refresher training done effectively with VR.

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