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There鈥檚 no doubt that virtual reality makes for an exceptionally cool gaming experience. But did you know it also has huge potential to change the world for the better? The technology has already been adopted in areas like medicine and psychology to great effect. And now, one revolutionary Irish company, , is utilising the power of VR to transform the online education industry. We caught up with founder David Whelan to find out more.

Learn Through Experience

鈥淥ur tagline is 鈥楲earn Through Experience鈥� and that鈥檚 exactly what we do,鈥� says David. 鈥淲e鈥檙e building an education and corporate training platform called Engage where any educator can teach any subject in a virtual environment.鈥�

It鈥檚 the perfect solution for distance learning but it also adds another valuable layer of immersion to the learning process. David explains: 鈥淔or example, if you teach marine biology, why not teach that on the seabed and have waves coming through the centre of the class? It鈥檚 much more engaging.鈥�

Create Your Own

The platform also allows educators and trainers to create their own content. 鈥淵ou put on a virtual headset and hand controllers and create a virtual version of you inside a digital classroom,鈥� David says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 even a virtual presenting screen so you can pop your PowerPoint up if you like. Or throw something new into the mix like a dinosaur.鈥�

Hang on, a dinosaur? 鈥淵es. You can drop objects into the environment so if you wanted a dinosaur to appear in front of you, you just choose it on the iPad and they pop up in front of you.鈥�

From Kickstarter to the Stock market

The idea that VR could be used for education was inspired by David鈥檚 own experience with the original Oculus Rift. 鈥淭he demo was a solar system,鈥� he remembers. 鈥淚 got my kids to try it out and the youngest was able to tell me all about the moons of Jupiter afterwards. I suddenly thought to myself, 鈥楾his could be a very powerful tool for education.鈥欌��

A software developer at the time, David set about trying to make his idea a reality. 鈥淭here wasn鈥檛 much stuff in the education space and I thought I could do a lot better.鈥� He got a 鈧�1,000 loan from his sister and started work on some prototype assets. 鈥淚 had an idea to do a prototype for where you become Neil Armstrong and you get to go to the moon and plant the flag,鈥� he explains.

He then floated the nascent project on Kickstarter and it snowballed from there. David pauses for a second and recalls: 鈥淭oday is actually the anniversary of when our Kickstarter got funded.鈥� And it seems to be an auspicious date for the company in general. Right after our chat, David is off to the Irish Stock exchange to ring the opening bell. The day before, the company had commenced trading on the Irish and UK stock markets.

Looking Ahead

The VR/AR market is a fast-emerging and developing market at present, forecast to grow to US$1.7b by 2021. The education market has huge potential too. 鈥淭oday there are 90 million online students in Asia alone,鈥� David says. 鈥淏y 2021 that鈥檚 going to grow to 160 million online students and we feel like our tech is perfectly tailored for that market.鈥�

Join the Revolution

If you鈥檙e interested in working on the cutting edge of VR, Immersive VR Education are . 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking for innovative thinkers to come work with us,鈥� David explains. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e doing has never been done before. We鈥檙e replicating everything you can do in the real world in virtual reality, and we鈥檙e prototyping things that haven鈥檛 been seen before.鈥�