Our co-founder and CEO, Mark Andersen, talked about how Project SANDI is fostering career mobility and digital literacy in Nevada by putting libraries at the forefront of workforce development. The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the labor market and left Nevada’s workforce in dire need of upskilling and reskilling. Precise career navigation via VR field trips is enabling job seekers to explore high-demand STEM and healthcare career pathways in resilient priority industries. Both municipal and academic libraries are playing a critical role in this skill-advancing process. Apart from mediating short-term credential training programs, academic libraries now have a deposit of 1000 VR Pico headsets that are distributed throughout the whole state of Nevada. The trainees can then borrow these headsets and finish the courses remotely, making the career training even more accessible.
Our school engagement and marketing manager, Martin Bukáček, presented insights about current workforce development needs and the transformation of education and libraries in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is currently facing numerous challenges — the economy is extremely vulnerable to automation that comes with Industry 4.0, education is reforming, there is a critical shortage of healthcare workers, and the refugee crisis is slowly unfolding. With the biggest network of public libraries, there is huge potential to provide unique solutions to these issues. They are already becoming the hotspots for Ukrainian refugees. With 3D and VR content our sister company Corinth has available, we are planning to help libraries integrate and reskill Ukrainians in their native language. In cooperation with both libraries and the trade unions, we are slowly building new career navigation projects that are reflecting the needs of Industry 4.0, and we are connecting the libraries with schools to leverage their educational potential with interactive VR content.
Finally, our product manager Iveta Acton Kališová talked about our challenges and how we are solving them, and our plans for the future. By regularly implementing new features, we are working towards making out products as accessible and inclusive as possible. Apart from switching to mobile VR devices from Pico, we are also developing an all-in-one platform for teachers, trainees, and learning administrators, translating our content to new languages and implementing different skin tones to reflect the diversity of our users.
You can watch all three talks here. If you are curious about anything we presented at the wonderful Library 2.0 conference, please don’t hesitate to approach us!