35C3 preroll music Herald Angel: Judith Okonkwo is a technology ex-evangelist, a business psychologist and a co-founder of "We will lead Africa". In 2016 Judith set Imisi 3D creation lab, which is building the ecosystem of extended reality technologies in Lagos, Nigeria. So, please welcome Judith. And let's have her talk. Judith Okonkwo: Thank you. Thank you very much! applause JO: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you all for coming today. I am going to talk to you a little bit about the work that we're doing in Lagos, Nigeria. Just generally about that and then about some specific projects that we've been involved in. So usually, when I'm speaking, people say: Wow, you're doing virtual reality in Nigeria? How come? Why? How did you even think of starting that there? Let me tell you a little bit about that journey. Now, I don't know if many people here have been to Nigeria, but just to give you some context: it's a country in the western part of Africa. Right now and the population is estimated to be about 190 million people. So, there are a lot of us. The projection is that by 2050 though, we will be the third most populous country in the world, right. Third after China first, and India second. It's also a country of lots of different cultures and lots of different languages. At last count there are well over 200 of these. Very diverse. So, in terms of VR, we started a creation lab there in Lagos called Imisi 3D. Imisi is a Yoruba word and Yoruba is the language of the Yoruba people who you find in the southwestern part of Nigeria. The word means 'inspiration'. We started out really small. We, well basically I, got a computer, a VR ready computer, a few headsets, a few books on virtual reality and set up in one of the leading hubs in Lagos, called the Co-Creation hub. So basically, that's what it was. That was the start. A desk in a corner where we said: Hey, if you're even remotely curious about this technology, if you want to know what's possible with it, then come on down. Because as you probably remember, in 2016, a lot of people were saying: This is the year of virtual reality. There was a lot of expectation that it would come into its own in some way and there was a lot of excitement about it and we felt that that was a story that we needed to be a part of as well for a number of reasons that I'll explore. So, in Nigeria if you think about the country say 5, 10 years ago, certainly we weren't on the, you know, on the global map for being creators. We were in some fields. So, for example you would always be able to mention super talented Nigerian Authors for example. But when it came to technology I don't think we were being thought of as creators a lot. Even though a lot of creativity was happening, even though a lot of innovation was happening in the country. And there's been a real drive, a real need, to shift that narrative from one of consumption, where we're just a market where electronics technology is being sold, to one where we are actually adopting these technologies and using them for our own purposes. Making them work for us as well. So, being able to move that needle from consumption to creation. Back to the start. We began on the first week of July in 2016 and that first week we had a virtual reality showcase. This is a picture from the event. We asked people to come, you know, if you're curious, if you've never tried it before. If you're wondering what this word that everybody's been talking about is. And that day, over the course of about five hours, we had about 100 people come down to try out VR, talk about VR, find out what the possibilities might be with this technology, figure out if it's for them. And what's really interesting for me personally is that, back then in 2016, that summer when we had people come into our space, probably 90 percent of them had never tried out virtual reality before. They maybe heard about it, might have seen a Google Cardboard, but you know, they didn't really know what it was. Today when I have events like this, at least half of the people coming in, at the very least half, would have tried out VR. So, it's just great to see even with time and with activity, how things can change. But on this day in 2016 we had people come in and, you know, they were challenged to think about what is possible with this technology. But then it seemed like a lot of talk. You know, you come in, you put on a few headsets, you try the Samsung Gear VR, you maybe try a Google Cardboard, you start to talk. But then what next? And that's something that we really wanted to make different. You know, let it not just be talk. We wanted people to know that these were technology that they should use to create as well. So we decided to have a hackathon. Then, when it held in November 2016, it was the first virtual reality hackathon in Nigeria. And promoting the belief that we have, that these technologies are actually tools, that we can use to create solutions, we challenged the participants to think about creating solutions for either education, healthcare or tourism. Now we chose these particular sectors because, we'd recognize that these are areas in which there was quite a bit of scope for immediate significant impact from a place like Nigeria. And here's what came out of it. In the picture there you can see what was the leading hack by the winning team. It was a product that they called "learn" but actually spelt L E V R N and it's an experience square, as you can see there's a leap motion attached to a Samsung Gear VR. And it allows you to learn how to code using hand based gestures. So it's really exciting to see people thinking about how they could push the boundary beyond what was even just traditionally possible with the gear VR as it was then. And to start thinking creatively about how you might use these technologies and tools to learn. Especially, you know, in disciplines that were always challenged about how best we can get people to learn and move with the times. OK. So, I've got a few numbers up on the screen. I wonder if anybody knows what they might refer to? silence JO: Anybody? No? Okay. So the first one, 263 Million, is a number from UNICEF from 2014. And then, that was the estimate about the number of children who were out of school in the world. The second number, 13.2 Million, is a number out of school children in just Nigeria. And that final number, 1 Billion., that's a number of children in the world who don't really have access to good quality education. You might wonder why have these numbers up right now. And that's because I believe that virtual reality is something that we can use to tackle these kind of statistics. One of the things that we're exploring in Lagos, is looking at VR for schools. Now certainly back in 2016 when we were starting out, quite a lot of the attention with VR was being put into sectors like gaming and entertainment. But as I mentioned, we we've been wanting to shift the needle to to other sectors to see ways in which we can adapt and use it. And I think that actually VR, despite the, you know, the common perception that it's perhaps elitist, perhaps expensive, in its low cost form could actually be a solution for education. And this is how it might work. Imagine if we took low cost VR, something as simple say as a Google Cardboard, mobile phones, and we all know the story of mobile phone penetration increasing daily in Africa across the continent, solar portables because in some places electricity from the grid is not reliable. And with that you have a device, that once you have the right content available for it, is an all in one learning solution that's fairly portable and can be deployed really just about anywhere. Now for me, this is one of the super exciting possibilities with a technology like virtual reality, that we can go into schools, or even the 13.2 million out of school children, go to them and give them a device with the right content that will allow them to start learning. And learning in ways that were not possible because, if you were to go to a traditional public school, I mentioned we are 190+ Million people, the infrastructure is challenged in terms of trying to deal with that number, and you'll easily have classrooms with over 100 children in them. Which means, that you're very limited in terms of the interaction that's possible between student and teacher, and also with the amount of infrastructure that you can provide. But as you know with VR, whether it's a virtual lab where they can do experiments, whether it's the opportunity to visit the pyramids in Egypt or even to explore the solar system, all of a sudden opportunities and experiences that would not be available even if, you know, we suddenly kind of like diverted our whole budget to education, are now possible and I think that's really exciting. And that's just a picture from one of the schools where we have been going in to explore using virtual reality to supplement the curriculum for education. Education is one possibility, but something else that also excites me about these technologies and what is possible, is when it comes to art and culture. This past week one of the leading African philosophers, a Nigerian woman called Sophia Oluwole, died and she was a very, very big supporter, promoter of African culture, of Nigerian culture and of dipping into your heritage to take that what was useful there and bring it and use it to help to define the life that you're living today and the one you want to create for the future. And I particularly like this, that you know, from one of her papers where she says it's up to us and she was really calling out to everyone to discover and promote a reliable African intellectual atmosphere based on narratives presented in the truth of their language and authenticity. And I bring this up now because I think that that is something else that this technology enables us to, in a sense, convey our reality and tell stories and the truth of our language and authenticity. And I want to tell you about two projects that relate to that. The first is one that brings Nigeria and Switzerland together. So, earlier this year I was approached by a team around the IAF festival in Switzerland. It's a festival that is focused on contemporary African art predominantly photography and it's held in Basel each year. Now each year, along with photographies that are exhibited, they add an element of contemporary art. This year it happend to be virtual reality. And for that, they said: Well, what would it be like if we were to juxtapose living in Switzerland - take a city, Basel - and in an African country Nigeria. Let's take a city, Lagos. What would that look like. So, what we created was something called Reality Check. It was a very simple VR experience actually. But one with a lot of potential and possibility. What we did was map out a number of locations. So, we took traditional places that you would visit. If you've been to Brasel you know it's quite compact, and it's really easy to walk around the center of the town. And we took places like a church, a shopping mall, a school and map these, and then wanted to do the same in Lagos. Now Lagos is quite widespread. So we chose a particular neighborhood, Yaba, and then did the same. We went to a church for example and captured the space with 360 video. And what was then possible was that, when you came to this festival in Switzerland, you could go on a walking tour of the city. But alongside that tour of Basel you could also have one of Lagos. So, you could walk to the church in Basel, seen in the picture there. And while there, you would then have an experience of a church in Lagos. We have, you know, over the course of the week that I spent there with them a whole series of people come round to come and figure out what it might be like, to step into a space in Lagos, Nigeria if only for a few minutes. Now each of the videos was really short and just about two minutes and I'm actually going to play one for you to see. But what was exciting for the people who tried it out, from what they said back to us, was just being able to shift your reality in a way that, as we know, is not possible with traditional media, not with the books you read, not with the videos you watch in 2D. Well, let me show you one. So here we are. This is the church in Lagos. JO mumbling Let's just get that... voices in the background of the video JO: And what we did is, during a weekday we were able to go in. Where the camera is positioned, is up where the choir traditionally sits on Sunday. And it happened to be a day when - it's a Catholic church by the way - they were getting ready, I believe it was a benediction service, so you can hear he has some of that going on down there. Here we are now in the (???) ave. voices in the background of the video JO: And so this video is much like the others. They were all roughly two minutes. The camera was stationary. And what we wanted to create was just the impression that, much like you were doing if you were doing the walking tour, where you'd get to a location and stand and look around. That you have that same experience in Lagos that you walked into, you know, the location in question. You stood at a spot and you were able to look around and observe what was going on for a minute or two. Video is still playing, no sound other than the voices in the background JO: Just give me a second. OK. And that experience that I just showed in the church was also done in locations like a university, a school, a library in Lagos, a bank, a Medical Center. So, just little vignettes if you will, of life, everyday life in the city that you're able to share. And we're hoping to do the flip later on, where in Lagos you will then be able to have the 360 experiences of these locations in Basel for people who are in Lagos. So, moving on and exploring art and culture. I have this other quote that I'm sure a lot of people have seen around quite a bit. And I first encountered it in one of Chinua Achebe's novels. It says: There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. And of course you know, we know how this applies in lots of ways. We talk about the way, you know, history might have been told. History as we know it traditionally, might be repurposed if it's taught from another perspective for people around the world. But storytelling I think, is particularly important with 360. And what was exciting for me as well earlier this year is, when we had a member of our community, the Imisi 3Dcommunity in Lagos, actually go and shoot what was the first 360 documentary. And this is just a short, about four or five minutes long. But it's the first Nigerian made 360 documentary in one of the internally displaced people camps that we have in the north eastern part of the country in Maiduguri. And this short documentary in Bakassi actually tells a story of a boy called Modu, who is an insurgency orphan. He's about eleven years old, but he has lost his father to the issues with Boko Haram in the north eastern part of the country. And his mother as well. So, he lived with his grandmother in an IDP camp and you know, was someone who, through whose eyes we could start to understand what it really means to be in that space, to understand that tragedy a little bit more. We had a screening for this documentary in Lagos in November, but even before that, I think what's really compelling is that we have had people who had even been to IDP camps in the Northeast and other parts of Nigeria. And when they came and they experienced "In Bakassi" what they would say is: This is even more real than being there. Now, at face value you might think: Well, what are they talking about? And when they broke it down, what they were telling us was, that when you are actually there in the camps, you're overwhelmed by all that's going on. There's so much activity, so much noise, so much jostling, that you are not really able to process what's happening around you. But when you have the experience in VR like this, through a 360 video, you're then really sensitive and focused on the experience as it is, on the story that you're hearing, in this case Modu's. So I am going to just play a little bit from the screening, not the documentary itself, for you to see what it was like sharing that work with people in Lagos. music Toks Bakare: My experience watching the documentary was intensely moving. I think because I had a phenomenally different experience watching it in VR. There's the ability to look all around you and really feel like you are immersed in the scene. I felt like I was in the camp and almost going through what the little boy is going through. So that, that was an interesting feeling that was different from watching a regular film. music JO: OK. So, I've talked a little bit about some of the projects that we've done or been involved in in this phase with art and culture, looking at things, like telling 360 stories or being able to share reality across different geographies. I want to talk a little bit more now about kind of like the future and where we see ourselves going. I have the words "bright future" there because I think we all agree that these technologies hold a lot of promise. But there are particular challenges for us in a place like Nigeria, and one of them is, you know, even just access to the hardware. So one of the things that we are exploring is, what would it be like if we were able to, you know, actually deal with that obstacle. What if we created a VR headset that was purpose built for our locale. An all in one solar powered VR headset. One that's me with locally sourced materials. How would that change things? Is that something that we are trying to do a design challenge around. We started one last year but tried to do it virtually. We'll be looking at in the new year having a team come into work on this and attempt to build one. Now if we can do that, it becomes really exciting for us because yes, we have platforms like YouTube where you can share 360 content, and Vimeo, and others. But not a lot of people have access to headsets and other elements of the technology and we can start to do something about that actively. So looking at ways in which we can build and, you know, do R&D to suit our purposes it's something that's very big for us. We are also working really hard to build a community of content creators. People who will work with these technologies, the people who will create the educational content that will make VR for schools a reality in a country like Nigeria. For that we have started to hold community meet ups. They've been running for over a year now. We have the very first one at the Google office in Lagos and have since, you know, had the community grow with people coming from all sorts of different sectors. From the arts, you know, from technology, people from business as well who are even looking at the opportunities to commercialize the technology locally. And we're excited about what's possible when all of these people come together. We're also trying to connect communities across Africa because we know that it's one thing to try and build communities locally and grow expertise there. But if we're joined up together across the continent a lot more will be possible a lot quicker. Earlier this year we held what was at that time the largest VR event on the continent, where we had a Hackathon happen simultaneously across seven countries. We had over 35 teams take part and the overall winning team was a team of three females from Egypt. And much like that first one that I mentioned in 2016 where we said create for education, or health care or tourism, we asked the teams to do the same. So, create for education, health care, tourism. However this time we added the environment, it happened around Earth Day, and also social justice. The winning team created an experience that allows you to learn about how to take care of the environment. And it was built for the HTC Vive. We also have a growing community that is online on Facebook. They come from over 20 different African countries. It's over 900 strong and growing every day. We're really excited about the possibilities as we all come together and start to figure out how we can work and create. We believe collaboration is our future, whether it's across these African countries or further across the world, the work that we did with Switzerland, whether it's being here and connecting with you all. But we know that together we can do so much more. I usually end my talks with this challenge to people particularly when I'm talking about using the technologies for the first time. Very, very excited to know that the future is ours to create and with things like VR and AR, solutions created in a way that maybe we're not yet imagining but perhaps we should. So what will you do? I want to leave you with one last video that shows what it's like in the lab. music JO: Thank you. applause Herald: Thank you very much. We have time for Q&A. There are two microphones here in the room. One in the middle, microphone number 2, and one out to the side, microphone number 1. And there might also be questions from the Internet. So please come up and we have already question from microphone number 2. Microphone 2: Hello. So, thanks for the presentation. There is a concept that, I don't know how valid it is, but the Innovator's Dilemma. Basically, if you are already in a comfortable spot, you're not going to push yourself too much, either in your community or your company. You have either a new player, that is going to make something radical and is going to challenge you to make yourself better. And there was some discussion on this based on the how for example maybe you not need the big DSL or fiber infrastructure to just just use 3G or 4G and in some community with other infrastructure maybe for example you do mobile payments, like in China. Could this kind of useage of your free education be an equivalent of this, that maybe the classroom as we have now is pretty good? But if you were so challenged, that you need to go much further. Would it be like new oppurtunity to use much better way to do it. JO: So thank you for the question. Yes, actually I think it might be. And you know you gave some examples about how leapfrogs have happened in other parts of the world apart from the West, just because they have accessed technology at a time that's later than the West, and so they've been able to kind of like evolve in a way that doesn't have to be anchored in the legacy. You know, the history of the technology and how it actually grew. I think the same is true for for technology like VR being used for education. And I think that because, you know the public schools I mentioned, where you might easily have over 100 kids in a classroom, you'll be in a space that is not like the modern classroom in a private school in Lagos or you know or one in the West. It's not like, you know ,where you have maybe a one to 20 or one to 10 you know teacher student ratio. It won't have all of the infrastructure that aids learning as we know it today. So, you are then challenged to think really creatively about what you might do with with VR, what you might do with whatever tool is brought to you. And that's why you know worth thinking about the low cost, you know, VR that might be mobile device driven or something powered in a similar way, because we know one of the challenges will be power, you know, as we know it. Because from the grid there, it's a challenge. And I think as you start to innovate around those realities and create them, yes, we will be able to leapfrog and potentially redefine what education looks like, certainly in that space. Herald: We have question for microphone number one. Microphone 1: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have read a number of studies where people have found that, if young children spend too much time in VR, if they're very young, it has a problem with their cognitive development. And I'm wondering if you're thinking about a sort of scaled approach at what age people are working with regular computer graphics and then how they engage with VR. JO: Absolutely Microphone 1: Get a good education. JO: Thank you very much. Yes. So for the work that we're doing at the moment with VR for schools, where working with children who are in secondary school. So those are children who are typically from 12 years up and we're very conscious, that there has been some information about the you know side effects of VR. But there's not enough data yet. And so we're consciously studying, as we're going along. We're about to start a formal pilot in one of these schools, where we will actually have a researcher who's working on the ground and documenting as we go on. We by default are limiting, you know, time in VR, because we know, just from what we know generally about screens and eyes, that it won't be great to have extended periods. But we're actively learning as well. Herald: We have another question from Microphone number 1. Microphone number 1: I see that you are working with unity alert. But I was wondering if you're also working with the more open standard of web VR? JO: We haven't yet worked with web VR. But that is something that we are about to start exploring in the New Year. Herald: We have a question from microphone number two. Microphone number 2: Hi Judith, thank you for your talk again. I found it very interesting and inspiring that you've presented the second talk where VR was considered like an interesting or an important tool to create new narratives maybe in a rather or historically rather oral based history culture or narration culture and to use it for alternative narrations and create the new historian as you say it like the maybe the non colonial historian if you want. And so I also wondered as I saw also in your presentation and this is also my perspective as I have been working a lot with Goethe Institute and have once worked in Kenya with Goethe Institute and I notice that like the sort of still the Western platforms and of course the institutions with money are kind of the only places and spaces where these things especially the technological things can happen due to money reasons, are the only spaces that exist basically. For example in Nairobi it was like this space that could be used by artists. There's some other spaces in Nairobi but still it felt like this strong like power maybe even more infrastructural power that's there and you've used the Google space and I saw the Facebook logo and certificate. So I wonder is this anything you feel doubts about? Or do you just think, ok we'll take their money and that's cool? JO: Great question, thank you. It's interesting that you ask because for me personally one of a kind of like the buggers for me is that a lot of the major tech companies, in my opinion they don't see, they don't see African countries as a real VR market. And you know you can see that just by the fact that their products aren't even accessible there. You know, they are not available. That said you know I think that I talked about collaboration a lot. I think that the way forward is for us all to work together. They already have done you know a ton of work in terms of what is possible with the technology and even what will be possible in the future. Just by virtue of their R&D budgets and what's possible. So I very much want as we grow that we are working with them and not apart from them in any way. But alongside that, I am very very concerned about as you know developing as ourselves and creating as ourselves you know if it goes like truth and authenticity that Sofia was talking about that we have our own voice and we can do it without being obliged to any one party. In that vein for example the lab that we set up one of the reasons was because we knew that access was difficult. We know that the equipment is relatively expensive. Things like that, particularly given the purchasing power of the naira. So we wanted to create a space where, if you wanted to do VR, or you wanted to create you could actually come in and use the equipment and we provide that and city and we'll be doing that in more states across Nigeria. But I think its initiatives like that locally that will make sure that even as we partner we can be true to ourselves. Herald: We have a question from microphone number one. Microphone number 1: Thank you for your talk. I'm sorry if you already covered this aspect. I came a bit late, but I want to ask about if you are working towards minimizing the digital divide. How? What are your effords about closing this. I understand that the project this is new, but your long term vision, how does that help to empower the rural population also? JO: Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. Actually one of the things that drove the creation of the lab in 2016 was even recognition of that digital divide. By that time I just spent about two years in Lagos working within the tech sector and just being able to kind of like tap into the talent that was there and see what was possible. And I'd seen what you know young people were able to do there with traditional technology, you know, with software development and all of that. So I knew that in terms of you know a potential it was there in kind of like limitless way but the challenge is always of course access to to the resources to opportunity and things like that and that's what we try to do which is why that element of community is so important for us. We we provide access to equipment and resources in the lab. We also hold those community gathering so that people can start to network with each other and collaborate together. We also look for ways to support learning and growth and we do that by either holding activities or sometimes doing things like offering scholarships for audacities virtual reality nano degree, but we're very very particular about you know talent and expertise being available kind of like locally and in country because that's critical. That's why I don't know if you were here when we were talking about Amber Cassady 360 documentary. But for me what's really exciting is that you know a Nigerian filmmaker will go acquire those skills and be able to be the one to make that in Nigeria because of course there have been other 360 documentaries made by say Al Jazeera for example you know and other media houses but of course they'll be bringing their teams in to do that. So yes very very conscious of trying to to narrow that. Herald: We have two questions at microphone Number one. Let's see. First one. Microphone number 1: First of all thank you Judith for this great presentation. Very short question and specific question. When it comes to VR in education there is one major problem in my eyes. I don't know if you can answer this questions, but there is no real business lobby for that right now. And when it comes to integrate VR content into educational program there is one major hurdle which is how to integrate that into the official program. Which content can be transformed into VR content? Are you working closely with regular let's say official education authorities? Is any board like trying to identify which content and how to integrate it progressively into your curriculums? Are you thinking about that? Because there is some nice attempt like in Egypt, in China to do that, but one of the major hurdle is, it is really hard to integrate it one time into the official curriculums. So how do you identify the content and how it is working with the officials? JO: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really great question. Yes. I mean all of the things that you've just mentioned very very real issues for us. When we wanted to start doing the VR for schools project the first thing that we actually had to do was approach the education authorities in the local area where we are the district office for education. So we had to bring them on board really quickly because we even need their permission to be able to go into a school and work. Beyond that we also decided to hold things like VR for education roundtables where we would bring together different stakeholders. So, these would be people from both the local governments from both secondary and tertiary education. And looking at both students faculty and sometimes even parents because we very much wanted people to come together to help us cocreate what a viable solution would be. And a lot of what you mentioned I mean that's what the teachers were saying. How exactly does this actually work? You know with the lesson you know, do you in the middle of a lecture put on the headset. You know what makes sense. So, so far we've been doing the VR sessions and special sessions that are carved out from the school time where we go and see we're coming to do a session with you. Going into the New Year though where we're going to actually start a formal pilot in a school. We're setting up a lab in the school and we're going to have somebody who's, you know there with them, so that we can start to work with the teachers to see how we can make VR learning an element of the traditional kind of like classroom plan. So, I say to people imagine what it used to be like when you would schedule a video as part of a lesson. What if instead of the whole class is going to watch a video. Instead they were going to go and have a VR experience as the content and the challenge around that and what's appropriate to create. And that's really interesting, something that we've been trying to tackle. When we first started to explore this. We were quite constrained in terms of resources so we were just curating what was actually already available and matching it to the national curriculum for the junior secondary school. So, we have some content that we have seen can match to some of the learning outcomes that are there at the moment. But we know that we do have to create custom content. We particularly have to create content that is much more accessible for people locally both in terms of language and in terms of kind of the visuals that they are accessing there. We are working with a major education publisher as well in Nigeria. And of course they have the expertise having created quite a few of the textbooks that are in schools currently to help us figure that out as well as collaborating with teachers in the pilot school. Herald: And please don't be shy if you have any questions please come up to the microphones and share them with all of us. We have time enough for quite a few more questions. A question from mic number two! Microphone number 2: Yes. Thank you Judith for taking on the journey. I have a different question but also missed the first minutes of your talk. As I see your talk here also a contribution from the Global South enriching us hopefully with your cultural perspective and my question is: Do you think that this technology could help us to bridge cultural understanding. Does it support empathy to get more of a picture. Well the trouble from a Western perspective is that you know the African countries exporting poverty that's not a major good selling good. But there is other elements that might enrich or you might have to hack into our minds. My question is: Do you think this technology can actually help to support people understanding other cultures better? Or is this for the moment more an experimental thing within your control as cultural context to do your own educational or other purposes? JO: Thank you for that question. Yes actually I do think that it will help us start to understand and experience other cultures better and even experience empathy. And I say this because even just you know when we first started the lab in 2016. So, a challenge for Nigerians you might not know but one major challenge that people have when they want to travel is getting visas. Yeah the stories you hear about visa refusals can be quite heartbreaking. But people were put on their VR headset and sit in a chair and if you know with Oculus you have this option under Oculus 360 photos of explore the world. So, you can go to basically any country and people would do that. They choose a country and go. And one thing everybody would say is you mean I can travel and I don't even need to get a visa. That's the first thing that really kind of like got people so curious and so engaged and I think that cuts across regardless of who you are or where you're from. Nigeria is not a known tourist destination right now but there is actually quite a lot to see in the country. And most people don't realize [name of region] the south of the country has possibly the greatest diversity when it comes to butterflies in the world. So, some things like that are not known and are not explored per se because it's not on the global map for tourism. But these are things that we can then start to experience via virtual reality and that's looking at an angle like tourism. I mean we can take it right down to the everyday to people's lives and stories. Much like, I think we've seen in a sense with YouTube and what bloggers have been able to create. But in a much more personal way now with with VR 360 that you can actually, say, step into my home, step into my life and I think we'll start to see more of those stories as we go on. Herald: We have about 15 minutes left and we have a question from mic number two. Microphone number 2: All right. Thanks for the talk. Maybe learning is not a privilege only to young people or did you consider teaching also older people or people from other areas? And also are you reachable outside Facebook? Do you have some webpage or something else? JO: Yes. So to address the last part first: Yes absolutely outside Facebook. So, if you do social media we are on Twitter as a Imisi 3D and Instagram as Imisi 3D as well. We have a website imisi3d.com and you can also e-mail us at hello@imisi3d.com. In terms of reaching people beyond young people: Yes, that is that's very very important to us even as we reach things like say VR for schools targeting students. We know that that is not possible if adoption doesn't happen across the board. We need the older people, we need teachers, we need principals to take it on board as well and want to work with the technology. So, we embrace all. I mean the targeted project might look like it is very student and young people focused but we work across the board because we recognize stakeholders in all demographics. Herald: Two questions at mic number one let's start with the first one. Microphone number 1: Thank you Judith for the fantastic presentation. I was wondering about, I've never heard I think VR and communal efforts and collective working together in such a beautiful way because in the global north I think VR is in a lot of cases in the framework of hyper individualized even isolated non- social as in such an activity. So, I think this was a brilliant new way of seeing that potential. I would be very interested in how you see that's kind of maybe a difference. Yeah and if you think a lot about this isolation part as well. JO: Yeah. So thank you. I mean I really believe that collaboration is the way forward. I think particularly in a place like Nigeria, a place where you're already resource challenged. I think if you saw the divisions early then there are too many problems. And I think given the scope of these technologies we haven't even begun to approach the boundaries of where they will be, where there's so much left to discover and explore that we must come together to challenge ourselves and work together and push boundaries. And that is enough scope for everybody to get involved. Yeah, I see the individualism that you talk about in other parts. I mean when I was first starting out one of the challenges for me was just even the multiple platforms that exist and the fact that things are gonna be unified in one way that we could all tap into. I hope it will change. But you know don't hold out too much but I think where we can work and where we can actually impact stuff and effect change the way that we believe it should be then we must. Herald: One more question from microphone number one. Microphone number 1: Thank you also from my side for you talk. I do have a question more like personally. What was for you, since you started two years ago with this journey on VR in Nigeria. What was for you the most surprising thing in this journey. JO: The most surprising thing I have never been asked that question so I'm pausing for a moment to think. Actually, so maybe not surprising in the traditional sense but like a couple of months after I started I was at an event where Y-Combinator had come to Nigeria. This was in September of 2016. So it was a year where quite a few people were interested in what was going on in Lagos. So Y-Combinator had come to Nigeria for the first time. And in one of the business schools they were having a talk, a session and I was in the audience and I just happened to look down on the road below me. There were two young men and they had a phone and they were actually watching like a 360 video on it. And stereoscopic the screen was split and I was amazed. I talked to them and I said "What are you doing?" And they're like "Oh, we're watching this." I'm like: "Do you have a headset?" "No" "Have you ever put it in a headset?" No, they hadn't. So luckily at that event I had a stand and the exhibition space and I said well during the break come down and we'll put it in a headset for you so you can actually see it the way it was intended. And so during the break they came. They did that, they were completely "wow". They after that went on and bought a VR headset. But for me why that stands out is because we started the lab because we felt like we must do this. This is time with these technologies if we want to be part of the story we get involved now. And I think that was a beautiful example of the reality of that. Herald: And please don't hesitate. If you're sitting in your chair thinking I have something to ask but I'm not quite sure if there'll be time, there is time for another few questions. So, please get up behind the microphones if there is something you want to know. We have another question from microphone number two. Microphone number 2: Thanks for the day. You mentioned during one of the answers that one of the key indicator you crossed were the schools basically is the ratio of the student pretty true or better. And then I'm wondering if let's say imagine managing a school and I'm considering your as a solution, I have to consider my cost to go through what I get out of those solution. So, which indicator is traditionally used in education system. Which would VR in the classroom improve the most? JO: Thank you. So for the VR for schools part that I've talked about where we're actually targeting public schools. The real target that we want to address with that is learning outcomes. We want to significantly improve learning outcomes with virtual reality. And do this in a way where what children are not learning about computers from a book of just from hearing the teacher talk about it but they can actually see one in that sort of thing. If you want operate it where they are learning about different experiments not just by hearing it spoken about but by actually being able to do it in a sense in that virtual space. So, it's really learning outcomes that is the key indicator for us when it comes to the returns that we hope to see. But I think that we will see depending on kind of like what school sector we're looking at that change a little bit. So in the public schools I think that it'll be easy to go in there and work targeting just learning outcomes. When we go to the private schools with a lot more resources than it'll be more new ones there because there'll be scope to do more things. For example we will have schools where they can afford to set up labs to actually create virtual reality. And for them some of the indicators that they might be looking at are technical expertise in these students that sort of thing. Herald: And if we don't have any more questions I think we should all thank Judith for an excellent talk! JO: Thank you! applause 35C3 postroll music Subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2020. Join, and help us!