November’s meeting with East Sussex College Group
At our November Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce meeting, we went over to East Sussex College Groups’ Hastings campus, to check out its brand-new Immersive Suite.
With multiple locations across East Sussex, including Hastings, Eastbourne, and Lewes, East Sussex College Group offer an extensive range of diverse courses, including A-Levels, T-Levels, and Apprenticeships. The College is recognised as a key educational institution, with unique facilities and classroom spaces, including a salon space for hair and beauty courses, training kitchens and the Coast Restaurant for hospitality and catering courses, and even a Boeing 747 replica to practise flight procedures for travel and tourism courses.
Heading up to the third floor which is where the Immersive Suite is located, our members had the chance to try out the technology first hand, being able to identify health & safety hazards in a hospital room, creating their own superhero with English skills, and practicing mindfulness through colouring – naming only a few of the ways this technology can be used.
The Immersive Suite tour was led by Vice Principle for Business Development, Donna Harfield, who explained how the suite has benefitted students – particularly those who have had to retake their Maths and English GCSEs – and how it has proven successful with a different way of learning and understanding.
We then went back down to the ground floor meeting room where we heard from Assistant Principle for the Hastings college, Lucy Mitchell, about the college and how local businesses can engage with students, to support the next generation of our workforce. It was great to see some of our members who have already worked with the college to take on work experience students and T-Level placements, allowing them to gain experience in a professional environment, helping them in their respective fields.
So, how can different industries and businesses like yours utilise and benefit from this technology?
Healthcare
- Medical Training: Doctors and nurses can practice surgeries or handle emergencies in a safe virtual space where no real patients are at risk.
- Therapy: Immersive therapy for patients dealing with PTSD, anxiety, or phobias by gradually exposing them to what triggers them in a safe, virtual space.
- Patient Learning: Shows patients how medical procedures work so they can understand their treatments better.
Education & Training
- Interactive Learning: Provides experiential learning environments for students, such as exploring ancient civilizations or understanding molecular structures in 3D.
- Workforce Training: Simulates real-world job scenarios, such as operating machinery in factories, flight training for pilots, or emergency response drills for firefighters and police.
- Diversity and Inclusion Training: Immerses participants in scenarios to better understand different challenges.
Real Estate & Architecture
- Home Tours: Allows buyers walk through homes virtually with interactive and realistic experiences.
- Design Previews: Helps architects and clients see and explore building designs before construction starts, helping to identify potential issues early.
- City Planning: Creates virtual models of neighbourhoods or city layouts to cities to assess infrastructure needs and environmental impact.
Retail & E-commerce
- Virtual Showrooms: Enables customers try on clothes or see how furniture looks in their homes online.
- Fun Experiences: Creates exciting, interactive shopping experiences such as virtual pop-up stores.
- Training Sales Teams: Helps train sales teams to interact with customers and learn about products.
Entertainment & Media
- Gaming: Builds super-realistic and interactive game worlds.
- Virtual Events: Lets people attend concerts or events without leaving home.
- Movies: Makes 360-degree or interactive films where the viewer feels like part of the story.
Manufacturing & Engineering
- Prototyping: Tests new product ideas in virtual space before building real ones accelerating development cycles.
- Training Workers: Trains employees to handle machines or work in dangerous environments safely.
- Maintenance and Repairs: Shows workers step-by-step virtual instructions for fixing equipment or highlighting problem areas.
Tourism & Hospitality
- Virtual Travel Experiences: Lets customers explore and preview travel destinations online before booking trips.
- Staff Training: Simulates customer service scenarios to improve staff performance.
- Cultural Preservation: Creates immersive experiences that allow users to explore heritage sites digitally, especially endangered locations.
Automotive & Transportation
- Vehicle Design: Assists in the design and testing of new models through virtual simulations.
- Driving Simulators: Trains drivers, including logistics operators and race car drivers, in lifelike virtual conditions.
- Customer Experiences: Provides potential buyers with virtual test drives of vehicles.