Company Name: BeingVR
Announcement Date: 27/04/2017
Announcement Category: Contract/Partnership
Announcement Content:
Diversifly announces a partnership with Virtual Guest to produce the first plate of the feast for their Gender Bias Awareness training in virtual reality (VR).
As a start-up bringing its first release to market, Diversifly has chosen to begin with the most dynamic and impactful element – a virtual role-play. The immersive role-play leverages the power of storytelling and first person narrative to transport the user into a boardroom where they actively take part in a challenging meeting by playing an on-screen character.
This presents an opportunity for the user to step into the shoes of a female colleague and experience bias in the boardroom as it unfolds. The end game being to teach emotionally intelligent strategies for capitalizing on workplace diversity, in this case, through a gender lens.
“There is an urgent need for more effective and engaging diversity training in Australian workplaces right now” says Lucie Hammond, Diversifly Director and Co-Founder. Plans to expand into broader people performance and inclusive leadership are also underfoot.
“There is plenty of research linking workplace diversity with improved performance and profit in business, but box-ticking on diversity hires has little impact if teams don’t know how to work effectively together. Our training will teach people to recognize bias behavior and sexist language as the first step towards challenging the status quo and building confidence and competence to open the diversity dialogue for both genders,” she said.
“Diversifly is thrilled to have the expertise of Brandon D’Silva and the team at Virtual Guest on board. We wanted a production crew that would understand how 360 video could be played out as an interactive learning experience, and be willing to jointly explore the capability of this emerging tech for awareness and behavioural change,” said Hammond.
D’Silva brings with him over a decade of experience in graphic design, photography and traditional video production, with clients including Disney, Sony BMG, Red Bull, Mitsubishi and Bang & Olufsen. Virtual Guest has worked on several VR projects including a research project with Dr Stuart Bender and Curtin University evaluating first person and third person perspectives in live action virtual reality storytelling, and a VR digital extension of SBS’s ‘Is Australia Racist?’ documentary.
Diversifly’s product is due for release at the end of May 2017 – also the deadline for organisations reporting their gender outcomes to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA).
Announcement URL:
About BeingVR:
BeingVR develop immersive learning experiences that are engaging and memorable. We believe learning and development should be fun and accessible for everyone, and we're on a mission to narrow the skills gap for the future of work to benefit individual workers, organisations and the economy.
Go to Company Profile for: BeingVR
Announcement Contact: [email protected]
