Preparing a New Generation of Humanitarian Responders for the 21st Century

“We know the world through our senses and perception systems. In other words, our entire experience of reality is simply a combination of sensory information and our brain’s sense-making mechanisms for that information. It stands to reason then, that if you can present your senses with made-up information, your perception of reality would also change in response to it. You would be presented with a version of reality that isn’t really there, but from your perspective it would be perceived as real. Something we would refer to as a virtual reality”. (https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html)

Eureka Idea Co. (EIC) is pleased to announce the launch of an innovative approach towards training and education of relief and development professionals through employing virtual reality (VR) simulation technology. We believe that a well-designed training curriculum delivered through virtual reality simulations will drastically change the quality and effectiveness of any training program currently in existence, and thus the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response efforts.

Our objective is to develop a completely immersive virtual environment that simulates real life situations related to all aspects of humanitarian response. The VR training program will enable its users to immerse into the environment, employ all their senses, communicate with colleagues and team members, make decisions and bring desired outcomes, thus learn through ‘guided experience.’ Through a simulated experience, EIC VR training solutions will equip humanitarian responders with the skills they will need to apply in their everyday work.

To achieve this, EIC will work with leaders in the humanitarian field to identify industry-standard humanitarian training curricula, and will collaborate with leaders in the VR field to translate those curricula into a wide range of interpretive scenarios. Eureka Idea will then serve as an inter-sectoral bridge to work with both humanitarian and VR leaders to ensure the new technology continues to meet clients’ needs, and to design and support the most effective and efficient deployment of this groundbreaking approach. Through these collaborations, Eureka Idea will eventually have the ability to custom-design VR training platforms for a variety of scenarios using a client organization’s own training materials. Trainings are likely to cover a variety of response contexts, such as natural disaster (earthquake, tsunami, flood), epidemics and outbreaks, and conflict situations. They will also cover sector-specific response programming components, such as health, shelter, and WASH, and other programmatic concerns including gender, social protection, monitoring and evaluation, and accountability.

We are open to close collaborative opportunities with the business sector, VR technology sector, foundations and independent VR enthusiast and developers. Please do not hesitate contact us if you share similar interest or simply if you would like more details about this idea and current stage of development.