A Simulation of “Physical Ability” for the Physically Disabled (Crippled) using Virtual Reality

Author: Business Beyond Reality

 

Virtual Reality as a field has been around for several decades. Even though it began as an initiative in the entertainment industry, today it has found an application in fields such as military, automotive industry, social networking, businesses and medicine. Of late VR applications to aid physically challenged have been gaining ground.

More and more NGOs and sponsors are coming forward to help the Physically Challenged people and are taking care of not just their physiological needs but are also training them for jobs, guaranteeing them economic stability and a good living.

What perhaps is left unnoticed is the “Psychological Feel Good Factor” of these disabled people. These people have to accept that their life would never ever be normal and they would never be able to move again. This is where Virtual Reality can be used to bridge the gap between “disability” and “ability”. Virtual Reality can act as a platform to simulate a life of “physical ability” for the physically disabled. Besides social networking, it would also let them do acts like walking, running etc which otherwise they can’t do in their real life because of their disabilities. Imagine a physically disabled person scheduling a walk with his physically able friend on the Miami Beach on a weekend.

Proposed Approach for this endeavor:

1.To identify an NGO (Or home for disabled), that provides accommodation to the disabled people. It should have considerable funds to be able to provide the minimum hardware required for the installation.
2. A Virtual Environment to be created which has the same look and feel as the place where the disabled are living. This would help them feel more closely attached to the simulated environment.
3. Creating additional spaces like Café, Garden, and Beaches etc which might be of interest to them.
4. Deployment of server at their location and connecting clients though a Local Area Network.
5. Creating log-in accounts for the people.
6. A workshop to train the people with the features of this environment.
7. Their feedback in terms of an Objective/Subjective Questionnaire.

I conducted a survey of about 50 people, of different age groups and from different educational background to know their opinion on how they perceive the Virtual Worlds for an application like this.

The exact statistics and graphs can be viewed at:http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/9/26/2116444/VRDisabled.pdf

Conclusion:

Approximately 90% of the participants found the concept of using Virtual Worlds for the people suffering from Physical Disabilities to be appealing while the rest were not convinced with this concept. As much as 80% of the participants said that they would advice Virtual Worlds for people suffering with physical disabilities. They believed that imparting a few moments of happiness to the physically challenged giving them a feeling of being a normal human being, like all others in this world, to make their life lively, is where the technology should be used. Approximately 16% of the participants thought that such an imaginary environment sounded nice but in the long run, would expose them to a virtual self, make them do things otherwise impossible to do which might affect them psychologically.

Supervised exposure to the Virtual Environment could prove to be beneficial for the physically challenged and if that happens, would be an apt use of the technology.

Please click on the link: http://xrl.us/virtual to view a presentation followed by a short objective Questionnaire.

Driving Businesses – Recruitment through Virtual Worlds

Author: Business Beyond Reality

 

Vikram Bhardwaj, CEO of Redileon, a Mumbai based HR Firm, gets a hiring contract from a global BPO which wanted to hire a general manager to run its private hotel in Hyderabad. His agency puts a recruitment hoarding on top of a hotel for less than $1. The neon sign ad flashed: “Want to earn $125,000 per annum. We are hiring a GM to run a hotel in Hyderabad.” Within 24 hours, four candidates from Ireland, Philippines, Czech Republic and Dubai are shortlisted and the applicant from Dubai joins next month.

Does it sounds like any other recruitment process and doesn’t get your attention? Well not exactly! The hotel and the neon sign ad existed not in the real world, but in Second Life, a Virtual Environment. The job however was real.

Rahul Dutta, a Virtual Property Dealer, and the CEO of VR1World has tied up with DepoConsulting to hire people across worlds through the Virtual Environment.

Wipro Technologies is bringing new capabilities to corporate recruitment via its Innovation Isle Island in Second Life. To begin with, the prospective candidates will be able to submit their resume at Wipro’s virtual campus and the initiative will be later become an integral part of Wipro’s recruitment drive.

The IBM Recruitment Center offers diverse topics. Such as: career opportunities both in the development, as well as in areas such as consulting and sales, internship offers, Dual studies at the Vocational Academy, advancement opportunities and much more. This makes it an ideal platform for students, graduates and professionals who are interested in career and development opportunities at IBM.

In Indian Scenario, a lot of MNCs are already using Web 2.0 for Talent Hunt. Jayantika Dave, Director (HR) Agilent Technologies, recently sought out a professional networking site in her never-ending search for knowledge workers. LinkedIn, a professional networking site, allows us to commercially utilise the services,” says theVice President (Strategic Resourcing) at Wipro Technologies. “The traditional channels need to be augmented with some innovation. Social networking sites provide access to profiles that often consultants fail to get hold of.” says Tanuj Kapilashrami, the India head of HR at HSBC. 

A Virtual Environment such as Second Life is a fairly newly discovered jungle to do a talent hunt. Since 2003 the online system has more than six million registered users, of whom around the clock an average of 15,000 to 38,000 actively uses the system (Source: Wikipedia). 

I had an opportunity to talk to Ashima Misri, Ops & Business Development, Indusgeeks Solutions Pvt. Ltd. She mentioned that there are approximately 2500 active Second Life Users in India. When compared to more than 30 million active internet users in India (Source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/indias-internet-users-reach-30-million-637/), the number of active users of Second Life is insignificant.

The possible causes are:

1. The concept of 3D Internet and Virtual Worlds still hasn’t become popular among the common people. Because not many people are regular on Second Life for Social Networking, people resort to build social network on Facebook etc.

2. Mediocre Graphics Card PCs/Laptops. For a lot of people, such a Virtual Environment won’t even be supported on their machine!

3. For Personal Use, people generally take Dial up Internet or up to 256 Kbps   Broadband. It doesn’t give the performance required to immerse people in Second Life. 

During my meeting with David D’Angelo (HR Analyst at Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) who has expertise in Talent Acquisition Systems and Recruiting in Second Life & Virtual Worlds, I was told that in US, there will be large number of retirements and the competition for talent is leading to recruitment in social networks and Second Life. He mentioned that for organizations, Second Life is a great place for screening of Applicants especially over a large geographic area. This is followed by a real world interview on the phone or in person. There are confidentiality issues and legal issues about doing all the work in SL right now. 

There are primarily two models in Second Life for the talent hunt - Islands and Job Fairs which give candidates a few choices. Companies like IBM have their own islands in Second Life where candidates can pass on their resume. Example of a job fair in Second Life includes the food service firm, Sodexho, which was covered by MSNBC in the September 10, 2007, article, “How your fantasy life can get you a real job”. The article details how a job candidate rather new to SL prepared to participate in a Sodexho job fair at the suggestion of a Sodexho recruiter he sent his resume to. His efforts at learning the nuances of SL paid off and led to a job as a chef in the senior services division of Sodexho.

During an interview, what the interviewee says is not the only important thing but how he handles the situation is equally important. Many interviewers want to see how the interviewee acts under stress. If the candidate looks confused like a fish out of water then the chances of his getting the job reduce. This measure is not possible in Virtual Environments like Second Life, which fail to observe the non-verbal communication/facial expressions of the candidate being interviewed.

A Live video streaming of the face and capturing gestures through sensors/vision could compensate for non verbal communication to some extent. The technology is still evolving!