Is Spatial Computing the Answer to Post-Pandemic Challenges in Canada’s Public Sector?
COVID-19 revealed multiple challenges for Canadian agencies. Could XR be the solution?
The pandemic led to many services being abruptly interrupted, forcing rapid innovation within businesses as a way to resume their activities in a safe manner. As private sector organizations rapidly deployed tools, the public sector seemed to struggle to keep up. In the aftermath of this global crisis, a new normal was defined. Both consumer and employee expectations shifted dramatically, and the use of forward technology became imperative.
Now that the pandemic is behind us, some new challenges are on the horizon. In the era of a rocky economy and constrained budgets, Canadian organizations are pressured to offer more services with fewer resources. Most are facing critical staff shortages; job openings are rising endlessly, while hiring rates remain stagnant. Demand for talent is particularly acute in fields such as healthcare, law enforcement, corrections, and engineering — all of which are highly complex, require specialized training, and are facing enormous changes after the pandemic. Organizations must provide training quickly, while budgetary pressures force them to demand more from each employee than ever before. At the same time, workers are asking for flexible environments and remote options. In this nationwide race for talent, employers must provide; and, in that context, the ability to enhance daily operations through the use of technology seems more than necessary.
Once in the realm of science fiction, Extended Reality (XR) has quickly matured from experimentation to many industrial applications. Studies and use cases consistently show that it has helped many organizations dramatically upskill workers, streamline processes, cut overall costs, better use data, improve public services, and more. For government agencies, the potential benefits extend across a wide range of areas. Plus, software such as the no-code creation platform StellarX make the creation of immersive content convenient and approachable.
Training & Onboarding
As Canadian agencies seek to onboard, train and upskill workers, XR can help them throughout the entire process and allow them to generate expertise as quickly and effectively as possible.
XR can help organizations optimize their recruitment process, retain staff, and avoid costly training for unsuitable candidates. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), for example, created an immersive experience to show candidates at job fairs what their work setting would look like. This pre-selection kept them from investing resources in staff that would later leave, as some inspectors and veterinarians had faulty expectations about working in a slaughter plant and ended up unable to handle it.
Immersive training transforms passive learning into an active experience, driving deeper levels of understanding and retention than traditional teaching methods (or even other non-immersive digital methods). Research found learners recall 76% more when using XR; in another case, XR contributed to a 40% reduction in error rate. With engagement rates in schools dropping drastically, rethinking traditional classes in an interactive way could be the best way to attract (and keep) student attention. That’s precisely what Quebec’s Metallurgy Sectoral Workforce Committee (CSMO-M) did: using StellarX, they recreated their 101 metallurgy course completely virtually. Before a career even starts, XR could be used to build employability skills, help with interview prep, and more.
The potential of XR in training extends beyond engagement. It enables the recreation of realistic, yet safe scenarios for high-pressure roles, significantly improving preparedness and response in critical situations. Take the Royal Canadian Navy or Quebec City’s emergency response teams, for example. Both operate in highly complex situations that can be costly, tedious, not to mention hazardous to recreate in real life. Well, using StellarX, they were able to produce safe, realistic, and cost-effective XR training that can be replayed over and over, allowing trainees to develop safe habits before even stepping onto the real deal.
Finally, the technology’s ability to track a trainee’s actions and inputs eliminates the need for individual feedback. Precise analytics can be generated by tracking cognitive load levels, stress levels, gaze patterns, movement, interaction, and more. This data-driven approach helps identify individual strengths and weaknesses, tailoring the training for maximum effectiveness — without effort.
Working and Learning From Anywhere
Remote or hybrid work was rated a top priority for workers, who are looking for maximum flexibility. Plus, it allows organizations to expand their hiring range in an increasingly tough job market. Well, XR can allow team members to connect remotely, and interact in a much more tangible way than a mere phone or video call.
XR makes bringing together expertise to collaborate, seamlessly connecting team members across functions, and accessing education from anywhere easy. It can also provide remote employees with the missing expertise needed to execute complex functions. Imagine if a soldier, injured during an operation, didn’t have to wait several hours to see a lead medical specialist. Instead, a simple paramedic that’s on the scene could connect with the expert, give him access to the patient’s vitals, and follow his orders. Distance: eradicated.
The ability to connect with an expert from anywhere also cuts travel time, and reduces the expense associated with setting up and executing certain work processes. For example, a US federal agency provided MR headsets to members so that they could conduct inspections from the other side of the world. The 3D visual data, delivered by an on-site colleague, allowed them to carry heavily location-tied work, regardless of geographic limitations.
Canada being a massive country, XR could also contribute to bolstering the accessibility of many services. The education or medical fields, for one, could greatly benefit from immersive technologies; courses or treatments that normally require an in-person presence could be made accessible to indigenous communities or rural populations who have minimal access to facilities. Take the University of Manitoba: they partnered with StellarX to develop a stroke rehabilitation VR program, allowing patients with limitations to obtain efficient post-stroke treatment from the comfort of their own homes. Indigenous services can use XR to extend their reach to areas with limited access.
Boosting Efficiency
Knowing is about accessing information. XR can help staff perform tasks faster and more accurately by providing them with the right information at the right time. For example, a worker could be guided by a digital overlay providing him with the exact contextual information he needs, without having to flip through hundreds of pages, search the web, or communicate with an expert. Use cases have shown that eliminating even the seemingly minor inconvenience of glancing back at a book resulted in a 34% increase in speed of accomplishing a task. For example, using StellarX, Bombardier developed an AR interface helping technicians quickly locate defects on aircraft parts, leading to a 260% increase in productivity and 5 hours of saved time per manufactured plane.
Environmental visuals lower the cognitive load of any user. XR overlays provide more digestible information, enabling faster and more informed decisions when it matters most. The US Army, for example, is developing a system to address capability gaps in the dismounted close combat force. Soldiers can use the system to access vehicle’s external sensors in order to see through them, thus dramatically enhancing their situational awareness.
Then, there’s digital twins, which are virtual models of objects, processes, or ecosystems. Fed with real-time data, they could improve Canadian agencies’ ability to understand and predict outcomes. For example, they could be used to visualize a complex IT system to bolster cybersecurity and detect weaknesses otherwise hard to catch in a sea of abstract data, or to visualize and interact with infrastructure plans in 3D before their actual construction.
Engaging Citizens
Post-pandemic, consumers have bigger expectations in terms of technological advancement, access to information, and efficiency of services. XR can help Canadian agencies live up to those expectations.
First, immersive training can empower workers to deliver vastly improved services. For example, a financial services firm that used VR to train its teams saw the wait time of its customers decrease by 50%. This could be plenty useful for over the phone or in-person public services, most of which are (sadly) known for their lengthy wait times.
XR can also improve the accessibility of information in a few different ways. For example, some locations could be visited from afar, historical pieces interacted with, or territory evolution shown over time using immersive environments. Big-scale events and festivals could offer immersive access to remote individuals. Tomorrowland Belgium did this during the pandemic, allowing them to carry out the 2020 edition of the festival completely virtually. Overlays could also disclose information on tourism, heritage, and culture to museums, monuments, and national parks visitors. The Royal Ontario Museum, for example, used AR to engage visitors in their exhibition Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants of Gondwana. Then, XR could also be used to destigmatize a less well-known service and make it more accessible; Héma-Québec, for example, used StellarX to demystify the blood donation process, hoping it will boost low donation rates.
Finally, XR could be used to gather data from citizens, to then be able to design better social assistance projects for them. Most agencies tend to take a one-size-fits-all approach for service distribution; but the reality is that everyone’s different, and the future of government service delivery needs to be highly personalized to an individual’s unique problems and preferences.
Agencies should begin their XR journey by defining the areas where it would be more impactful, and by thinking of ways to start implementing it. Iteration is key here; rather than revamp an entire process, it may make sense to approach it one thing at a time, and look for areas that are most readily fixable or where goals aren’t being met.
While that may sound simple, it can be a challenge to know where to start. Plus, agencies need the right infrastructure to support a successful XR deployment. Given the rapidly evolving XR landscape, they should consider teaming up with a partner that has a depth of experience in the field — and, well, that’s what StellarX & OVA are for! Our software allows you to create human-centered experiences adapted to your needs, and our team can help you plan, implement, and scale your project. As the first Quebec company, and only XR company, to be part of ISED’s Pathway to Commercialization, we are best-positioned to collaborate with Canadian government groups, who can easily get into contract with us for up to $8M per department.
As XR technology is becoming more accessible, now is the time for federal agencies to consider a strong candidate for solving the mounting challenges on their plate. Hardware is more affordable than ever, while the simulations themselves are increasingly sophisticated. As Artificial Intelligence, 5G, and Cloud Computing are rapidly evolving, Extended Reality technologies are poised to become more efficient, more powerful, and especially, more commonplace. In a post-pandemic world where resources are scarce and expectations are high, government agencies no longer have the luxury to wait and see. They should move forward on this powerful technology, or risk being left behind… again. So, as they master an entirely new world — the virtual one — they will finally be able to meet mission needs.
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