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How would you “simulate a better world” if you had half a million dollars and the technical expertise of an interactive video simulation company at your disposal?
That’s the question WILL Interactive, the Potomac, Md.-based developer of Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulations (VEILS), is posing to individuals and organizations in its “$500,000 Simulate a Better World Challenge.”
Are you a school administrator interested in teaching children about the hazards of cyber bullying? An airline employee looking to educate your passengers in terms of safer air travel? An Army colonel hoping to ease the re-integration process for soldiers returning from war? These are just a few of many possibilities Sharon Sloane, WILL Interactive’s President and CEO, envisions for this contest.
“We want to cast a really wide net and find out what the public or organizations that we haven’t worked with are thinking about with regard to ways that WILL’s simulations could improve society,” Sloane said.
The challenge is open to any organization or individual, with one of the primary criteria being that the winning party must have the resources or a strong strategy for widely distributing and promoting the simulation.
“If it’s not available to the people who can benefit, then you haven’t accomplished the objective,” Sloane said. “There has to be a strong distribution plan included in the application.”
WILL’s VEILS are already well-known throughout the U.S. military. WILL is currently rolling out 16 separate interactive simulations for the Army’s $125 million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program. The CSF program is intended to ensure physical and mental wellness across the ranks, in areas such as nutrition, single parenting, finances and premarital decisions.
The company hopes to reach out beyond its traditional client base to raise awareness about the ways simulations can be used in a variety of communities, and also to learn new areas where its simulations could be used in the future.
“Many times people will see our simulations through a channel not in their mainstream, and the power of what it does,” Sloane said. “They’ll come to us and say, ‘This is what’s keeping me up at night. Do you think you could develop a simulation around my issue, my audience?’ ”
The final deadline for submitting applications is Feb. 29, after which WILL plans to pick its five favorite entries that are feasible and valid and put them up for a public vote through its website and Facebook page. The final decision will be made in the spring.
Once the award is made, WILL plans to produce and develop the simulation, while looking to the winner to help guide the content with subject-matter expertise, as well as aid in the distribution of the completed VEILS product.
“We’re excited to see what submissions we’re going to get, and we’re really trying to throw open the doors and see what kinds of ideas people have,” Sloane said.
