Virtual Workplace

Virtual Workplace prepares remote youth for the realities of living and working in cities through an immersive virtual experience, increasing their resilience, critical life skills and providing safer pathways to employment. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology as an innovative learning tool, our solution is adaptable and scalable to multiple contexts.

Virtual Workplace is a portable pop-up space where young people and their communities will be immersed in the realities of their future formal and informal workplaces, such as garment factories and construction sites, as well as households, restaurants and offices. For young rural Cambodians these are their future employment opportunities and they are found by migrating to urban centres, which is often a harsh new reality which they are unprepared for.

To prepare youth to adapt to this new reality, our solution incorporates VR technology, a live virtual dialogue with an employer or worker, as well as reflection through Forum Theatre - an interactive theatre approach that allows participants to experience different perspectives in a simulated workplace setting. A digital platform will be developed to support the VR experience, lay foundations for scaling the project and allow employers, workers and young people to interact and collaborate.

Through VR technology, our solution allows individuals to embark on their own journey, within a safe and familiar environment, accompanied by their peers and in their own language. The VR technology is adaptable and portable, which increases inclusion of women and people living with disabilities, whose level of access to support services is usually more restricted.

Like Solve, Oxfam works in a collaborative partnership approach. Our strong partnerships with youth organisations and workers associations on the ground ensures our solution is sustainable, appropriate and relevant to the context, as well as accessible to young rural Cambodians.

This pilot project, using VR technology as an innovative learning and development tool, supported by a collaborative digital platform ensures scalability. It can be adapted to any culture and context, and could have a wide impact in preparing young women and men from ethnic minorities or isolated areas to be ready for the jobs of the future.

Currently 30% of young Cambodians (aged 15-25) are migrating to urban centres or other countries in search of economic opportunities (IOM, 2017). The most marginalised of rural youth are indigenous who have limited education, limited knowledge of Khmer language and little experience of the social aspects of city living. These young people leave their homes without having a strong understanding of what a workplace is like or what knowledge and skills they need to ensure they are safe, productive and empowered in the workplace. This group is vulnerable to exploitation, violence (especially gender-based violence), social isolation, and health problems.

As rural-urban migration within Cambodia will increase (ILO, 2014), our solution  gives young people knowledge and linkages to adapt which CDRI (2007) has identified as key to improving migration outcomes.

Young rural Cambodians will be empowered to enter the workforce and be prepared for current employment opportunities as well as the jobs of the future.

Through integrated partnerships and innovative application of technology, such as VR which is the “highest ceiling in terms of how well people can understand an issue” (Mochizuki, 2016), this solution will educate young people by placing them in virtual employment environments and create employment pathways.

Young people from rural villages, particularly young women and young people living with a disability, are more resilient, have a stronger understanding of, and are better prepared for the workforce of today such as construction and textiles and the jobs of the future such as tourism, hospitality and IT. Young people, and their communities have a clearer understanding of the working environment and employer perspectives, in urban centres or the neighbouring country to which they migrate. The solution will be deployed using existing rural community and private sector linkages. VR, Forum Theatre and a digital platform will be utilised.

Conduct regular surveys within the target groups to assess the changes in behaviour or conditions that reflect a positive impact to those young people. - Improve readiness of marginalised indigenous young people from rural villages to take up work in the workforce of today and the jobs of the future. We estimate the target group to include 2 communities consisting of 50 – 200 people.

The project team will conduct a baseline and end line survey to assess the successes, challenges and lessons learned. - Increase target groups’ understanding of urban working environments to reduce exploitation and maximise successful employment outcomes.

Progress within this outcome will be assessed by the number of agreements signed with the private sector and by the number of job placements with beneficiaries from the project.

Interviews with target groups and partners will also help measure this. - Create direct linkages with the private sector to provide employment criteria, engagement with target group on developing relevant skills to this criteria and safe and inclusive employment pathways.

There are currently very limited support networks and services for disadvantaged rural youth in Cambodia who are migrating to urban centres for work. Our solution is innovative as using VR technology in development programming has never been done in Cambodia. It also enables groups of people that would not normally interact (Employers and remote villagers) to connect. Rather than traditional class based or online learning approaches, the Virtual Workplace allows the individual to set their own learning agenda in an interactive and immersive way. 

By combining an innovative medium with a human-centred learning approach, our solution addresses individuals’ distinct learning needs, experiences, aspirations and culture. It is not until a young person leaves their village and arrives at a workplace in an unfamiliar city that they experience the often-harsh reality of learning an entire new set of skills and behaviours to ensure they are productive, empowered and safe in their new environment. The solution’s content and interface will be co-created with the target group to ensure their needs, expectations and ideas are front and centre in the development of our solution.

Existing strategic partnerships with community-based organisations and local government, as well as with the private sector will be essential to select the pilot community.

After completing the development, incubation and testing of the technology the Virtual Workplace will travel to remote villages and will be available free of charge in houses, community centres, or in the open air.

The Virtual Workplace story will be spoken and told with subtitles in Khmer and local languages (for vision and hearing impaired youth and community members, language differences) and will be able to ‘pop up’ anywhere -  being accessible to anyone.

The Solve grant will be used as seed funding to develop and incubate the model and technology within the first year of the project. This will ensure that the piloted solution is sustainable as the takeaway will be a marketed and tested product, with a business model that takes into consideration the following factors;

• Production costs of the Virtual Workplace
• Robust Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning strategy to understand the impacts of the pilot.

After the pilot the following partners will be approached to fund and resource the ongoing implementation and scaling of the solution:

• The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
• The Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training.
• Private sector partners identified in the pilot stage will be approached to fund the project from a Shared Value and CSR perspective.
• Additional grants based funding from global technology firms and foundations. 
• Impact investors looking to fund innovative solutions.

• Production and equipment costs for VR technology may be high. We will therefore utilise the low-cost and widely available cheaper technology.
• VR production specialists may not exist in Cambodia. Our partnership with SmallWorld, a community of business start-ups created by progressive young Cambodians, should mitigate this risk. 
• When working with technology there is always the risk of equipment not working. As such, comprehensive testing in the field will be done and integrated feedback gathered from target groups for all aspects of the experience in the initial target area.

Solve’s values are aligned with Oxfam’s values of inclusiveness, collaboration and putting people at the centre of our work. Oxfam works collaboratively with partners to find innovative solutions for those living in poverty. At Oxfam we are keen to ensure innovative technologies are maximised as a tool to facilitate inclusive development. By becoming a Solver we are able to maximise both Oxfam’s and Solve’s areas of expertise to have a greater impact on disadvantaged youth from remote rural areas to increase their resilience, knowledge of their rights and develop their skills for future employment.

• Youth Council of Cambodia
• Cambodia Constructors Association (CCA)
• Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC)
• Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Associations (CAMFEBA)
• Cambodia Restaurant Association (CRA)
• Small World