Reimagining learning for small businesses in emerging markets: The opportunity for virtual reality
The following is a guest post written by Natalie Miller from XRGlobal, a company that builds virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality solutions that revolutionize learning and development in emerging markets.
Whether you’re a fan or critic of Mark Zuckerberg, the “Metaverse” has grabbed headlines around the world over the past year, precipitated in large part by Facebook’s name change in October 2021. Originally coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 book Snow Crash, the term “metaverse” described programmable avatars and software agents interacting in a three-dimensional virtual space. Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is focused primarily on social interaction and real estate, whereas we at XRGlobal (XRG) are utilizing virtual reality (VR) to transform the way education and training is done in emerging markets with the mission to upskill youth and small businesses to inspire, empower, and connect. XRG’s experiential learning is best described by one of our trainees in Rwanda: “We now see what we have been told to learn.”
XRG is an edtech company with an offline (and online) VR learning and training platform. We have trained 80,000 people in Africa over the last three years and recently started working in the Philippines with the Asian Development Bank providing immersive financial literacy training for fisherfolk and small farmers.
How we got started
But let’s rewind to 2019 … I had spent the previous couple of decades working across Asia and Africa in the health, fintech, and agritech sectors. I faced the same pain points time and again with learning: low retention rates, time challenges, lack of consistency in teaching, and obstacles gathering data on learning and uptake. I then met my co-founder Bryan.
Bryan, who at the time was vice president of a US training company, had implemented VR and had seen firsthand its efficacy compared to typical training methods. He wanted to bring that to emerging markets where the impact would be even greater. We initially tested the efficacy of VR training in an African market during a study with USAID Feed the Future in Rwanda. A control group of agrodealers went through their traditional three-to-four-hour classroom training session and had an average 5% increase in knowledge from baseline. The treatment group was taken through a thirty-minute VR training module built using the same training content. The latter had a 45% increase in knowledge from baseline (you can read more on benefits of VR training in this blog post). It all started from there, and now XRG works across eight countries and five regions.
The challenges of being first movers
As first movers, it has not been an easy road and continues to be challenging to bring an innovative technology to the field in emerging markets — especially one currently used primarily by large corporations and the military in higher-income countries. However, as we continue to conduct pilots and showcase the power of more authentic experiential learning enabled through VR, we are seeing the tide begin to shift. Stakeholders in the learning and development space are increasingly seeing VR as not only a viable option but also a methodology with a high return on investment.
As for the trainees themselves, many organizations have voiced concerns around their trainees potentially being “intimidated” or “turned off” by VR headsets. We haven’t experienced that reaction from trainees across any educational levels — from construction workers in Kenya, to female subsistence farmers in rural Rwanda, to youth learning motorcycle maintenance in Mozambique. We have particularly seen excitement from female trainees who have overwhelmingly preferred VR training, where they can learn in their own space and time, to classroom training. The decrease in training time is also a huge value add as most are already struggling to manage that careful balance of family and work.
The VR opportunity for small businesses
XRG’s vision statement is “creating opportunity, transformative upliftment and access to learning for all.” We are working towards achieving this by putting plans in place to become a VR content hub and lowering the barrier of entry to this effective and scalable tool. We are already enabling low-cost access to our online multi-user VR platform, Meta Academie, where organizations can run small group learning workshops, product launches, or onboarding, teleport their employees into various situations and locations, and interact with 3D models to advance learning and understanding. We have also worked with hardware partner DPVR to design the first commercially launched data-enabled VR headset to allow access to our online Meta Academie in areas without Wi-Fi.
Our program with Strive Community is testing the potential of VR for upskilling micro- and small businesses through an immersive learning environment. Small business owners can learn by experiencing in a low-stress environment, without a commute or travel costs, supporting them in their digital transformation journey. Our online multi-user platform means that microentrepreneurs, particularly in rural areas, can have one-on-one mentorship from experts and coaches in our virtual environment, providing that personal touch and deeper engagement they may otherwise not have access to.
This approach is far more cost-effective and scalable than current offline learning techniques. We will showcase how VR, like those that have used our solution already found, is more effective than current digital channels. As researchers at the University of Maryland found, “VR adds a layer of reality to the experience that lets the brain build a true “memory palace” in 3D space.” Maybe even more importantly in this modern day phone-attached-to-hip world, VR also eliminates distraction and makes trainees feel more attached to the content. This was the case in a PwC study on using VR for soft skills training, which found VR learners were 3.75 times more emotionally connected to the content than classroom learners, and 2.3 times more connected than e-learners.
As our program progresses, we’ll share more updates and insights on the opportunity of VR for increasing the resilience of and supporting the digitalization of micro- and small businesses. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about VR or XRG’s offline and online training solutions, follow us on LinkedIn or contact us.
