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Access to the Internet can be spotty\nin Northern Canada. But heavy industry happens up there all the same,\nand Bit Space Development\u2019s Daniel Blair wants to bring those\nworkers the same access to XR-driven training and remote expert\nassistance as anywhere else enjoys. He chats with Alan about how he\nhopes to bring that about, in the first XR for Business of 2020.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlan: Hey, everyone, it\u2019s Alan\nSmithson here with the XR for Business Podcast. Today, we\u2019re speaking\nwith Daniel Blair, founder and CEO of a Canadian VR company called\nBit Space Development. We\u2019ll be discussing how virtual reality is\nrevolutionizing industrial training and why it\u2019s vitally important to\ndefine your key performance indicators to release you and your\ncustomers from the Pilot POC Purgatory. All that and more on the XR\nfor Business Podcast.\n\n\n\nWith that, I want to welcome my good\nfriend Dan to the show. Welcome to the show, Dan.\n\n\n\nDaniel: Hey, thanks for having\nme.\n\n\n\nAlan: It\u2019s my absolute pleasure.\nLet\u2019s get into what you guys are doin; making serious purposes with\nVR and AR. What does that mean?\n\n\n\nDaniel: Basically, what that\nmeans is we utilize immersive technologies to create games. But those\ngames are used for training, education, and really serious purposes.\nWe aren\u2019t generally building applications that are going to be sold\non Steam or sold on the Oculus store. But what we\u2019re building are\ntools that integrate with clients infrastructure to help augment\ntheir workflow or create a safer workplace.\n\n\n\nAlan: I know you guys have done\na ton of things. One of them was a hand tool training simulator.\nMaybe walk us through what are these things, and how are people using\nthem?\n\n\n\nDaniel: For sure. Some of our\nmost recent deployments include exactly what you\u2019re talking about,\nthe power tools simulator, which we created with a provincial\norganization here. That tool utilizes the room-scale six degrees of\nfreedom tracking of any of the open VR-capable headsets, to put new\nentrants and kids on job sites and teach them about safe operation of\npower tools. And that can range from anything from a drill or a\nhammer drill or a circular saw. But we put some really interesting\ntools in there, like concrete saws \u2014 which would be extremely\ndangerous for a new entrant to use in real life.\n\n\n\nAlan: I actually know all about\nthat, cement saws. When I was a kid, my dad was grinding some bricks\nwith a grinding wheel and the wheel shattered and cut both his legs\nwide open. And I remember as a kid, taking him to the hospital and\nthem having to sew up right down to the bone. I mean, this was a real\nproblem. I know this firsthand. This is a very, very unsafe tool if\nused incorrectly.\n\n\n\nDaniel: Yeah. And the worst part\nof building these applications are the shock value photos that my\nclients will send me. I\u2019ll wake up in the morning and they\u2019ll say,\n\u201chey, this is a good example of why to learn about the safe\noperation of these tools.\u201d And they\u2019ll send me a photo of\nsomething similar to what happened to your dad, which is super\nunfortunate. And additionally to that, we\u2019ve done a lot of work in\nthe welding space, and on the more promotional side, our most recent\ndeployment is called Level Up VR, which we developed with the USAF\nWorkers of Tomorrow, an organization that promotes safe work sites\nand safe work practices for both employers and employees for youth.\nAnd that tool actually won an Impact Marketing Award for the use of\nthe virtual reality tool in the campaign that was created to raise\nawareness. So we see both the marketing side and the education side.\n\n\n\nAlan: That\u2019s amazing. Safe\nworking is something that we need to market to. Tr