VR Humanity

Transforming training and emergency preparedness in humanitarian response through virtual reality.

Globally, international organisations, governments and NGOs rely on trained volunteers to support delivery of emergency assistance and care to refugees and displaced populations living in camps and settlements. We are committed to solving the problem of insufficient and inadequate training for volunteers, thereby enabling actors on the ground such as NGOs and governments to deliver assistance more efficiently. The current geographic focus  for our team is Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The annual monsoon season (May-October) causes flooding in refugee settlements in this region, posing a high risk of infectious disease and death, especially among children. Approximately 1.3 million Rohingya refugees are currently living in makeshift shelters, and at least 600,000 refugees are unable to receive urgent care due to limited access to medical facilities (ACAPS 2017). NGOs and other agencies require skilled volunteers to provide critical care and services to the affected populations. However, volunteers are unable to receive adequate training prior to deployment, pushing up on-site demands for training and personnel time. Furthermore, evidence has also shown that in similar contexts around the world, non-medical volunteers are unable to provide support during emergencies due to ineffective training retention and lack of confidence.

Our solution proposes the use of virtual reality based simulations to provide volunteers with training in medical and non-medical skills, customised according to the conditions of deployment to ensure they understand how to apply those skills in context. Our users are volunteers recruited by NGOs, government and other organisations, and our customers are these organisations themselves. Volunteers recruited for deployment to Cox’s Bazar will complete a guided training course that uses a combination of existing training modalities and virtual reality simulation packages. The virtual reality training modules will provide an interface that matches the geographic and infrastructural conditions in Cox’s Bazar, including terrain and other conditions such as post-flooding management and landslide scenarios. The prototype of the solution will be tested through a Simulation Centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Skilled volunteers will be rapidly deployed to the camps after completion of the training course for at least 6 weeks. Feedback from returning volunteers will be used to improve modules and pedagogy bi-annually.

This solution can truly change the way we train people to delivery assistance to the most vulnerable populations around the world. Virtual reality provides an immersive, kinetic learning experience that can enhance understanding of emergency response procedures, and prepare volunteers psychologically for working conditions in a refugee camp and/or disaster response context. VR technology has been applied in medical school simulation training with tremendous results in number of lives saved and increased training retention (Khanal et al. 2014). Currently, it has not been used by humanitarian actors to train volunteers prior to deployment. VR and simulation technology enables users to interact with different environments through controllers, enhancing experiential learning. This solution has the potential for global scalability and sustainability since its relevance is premised on the most fundamental needs of people affected by natural disasters, conflict, or environmental change.

Experiential learning has now become an essential part of many educational and professional training programs. Its used in training pilots, doctors and even bankers on stock market simulations.

Our idea brings the experiential learning approach in the form of Virtual Reality tutorials to a new field training Front line health workers where it is bound to have a significant impact in thee effectiveness of the health workers.

Virtual Reality based learnings have a 90% higher retention rate than traditional classical classroom teaching using books and checklists. Our solution uses Virtual Reality to bring simulations of flooded refugee camps to the volunteer frontline health workers prior to deployment. 

From the hardware VR head gear to the development of the tutorial softwares technology is an integral element to the solution.

Over the next 12 months we aim to:

1. Pilot our solution in the Rohingya Refugee Camps in the current flooding season of 2018.
2. Build targeted simulations covering 10 essential tutorials for the work expected from the frontline health workers.
3. Build capacity and physical premises in time for the flooding season of 2019

The solution is plug and play in nature. The same business model and training centre can support a variety of trainings for health workers for a variety of disaster situations.

For the first 3 years we aim to concentrate on the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. We aim to build our learnings from that experience.

Thereafter, we plan to expand to other periodic disaster situations that impact human life annually.

The plan maybe expedited as we grow and learn from our experience in Bangladesh. 

The solution aims at educating frontline health workers employed by International NGOs and Human Rights Groups working in Refugee Camps. Hence,

• The Customer: Multilaterals and International NGOs (e.g. UNDP, HelpAge, UNHCR, Medicines sans Frontier)

• The User: Front Line Health Worker employed by the NGOs
• The Beneficiary : Refugees living in Rohingya Refugee Camps

The business operates on a B2B model with attractive pay per trainee OR monthly subscription options given to multiple customers. The beneficiaries remain in a closed catchment area.

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Within our first year, we hope to train more than a thousand volunteers supporting the refugee health efforts in Cox's Bazaar Bangladesh.

Better trained volunteers and health workers would be able to better serve refugees, especially during the 8 month long flooding season annually. 

The training has the potential to save the lives of more than 650,000 refugees in these camps who are every year at the critical risk of death due to infectious diseases.

1. Impactful network to seek out Strategic Partnerships

2. On-ground experience of working in Refugee Camps across Bangladesh and Greece

3. Experience in running a 30Million USD big non-profit in the developing world

Product Offering

Our service offering is to provide training modules on Virtual Reality Training Centres to the frontline health workers deputed by our customers.

Pricing

• Larger non-profits and multi-laterals with a steady stream of volunteers and a high turnover will be offered periodic subscriptions to the trainings.
• Smaller non-profits will be provided ad-hoc per trainee prices

Total cost to the customer will range between $150 to $170 per pax.

Profitability

• The nominal training price of $150-170 per pax allows for limited surplus to the business recovering initial capital costs.
• It is an operationally lean business with a one-off capital investment in setting-up the training facility and building the software.

Sustainability and Expansion

• Operating the business remains marginally profitable even at the low training costs and is self sufficient.
• The business model is plug and play where the same training facility and VR headsets can provide training for a variety of disaster scenarios not just floods in Rohingya camps.
• A limited capital investment on new software can then quickly allow us to expand to a new market.
• In addition we envisage, grant aid to support the initial capital expenditure given the scalable nature of the enterprise and the potential for impact.

MIT and the Solve initiative are at the cutting edge of applied technology. From the platform we seek to find:

• Technical expertise and support in the Virtual Reality development space
• Partners and investors who can help us maximise our impact and scale
• Entrepreneurial advice and inputs in starting an international business. 

The Virtual Reality technology interface comes with a unique set of challenges. A variety of experiences on VR are being offered to VRHumanity at a diverse set of price points. 

Understanding how to take VR technology to the applied space for our field will be the critical barrier we have to overcome.