Everyone at some point in their working lives will probably come across a manager or fellow employee who grates on them, whether that’s through poor communication, listening or other behaviours. Bodyswaps is a virtual reality (VR) platform which specialises in these soft skills, announcing the launch as well as joining HTC’s global XR accelerator program, Vive X.
Bodyswaps is a training solution for enterprise and educational organisations looking to supply employees with new tools when it comes to interacting with others, boosting confidence to create a positive behavioural change.
The launch of the platform this week comes with three modules, Active Listening, Clear Communication and Challenging Non-inclusive Behavior. The team has three more planned for 2020, Job Interview Skills, Emotional Intelligence and Unconscious Bias Awareness.
Using active reflection to encourage behavioural change, Bodyswaps worked with behavioural scientists and learning designers to create its solution, where learners can act with their own voice and swap perspectives to watch themselves back. The platform supports all major standalone VR headsets to aid remote learning.
A UK tech startup, Bodyswaps was conceived during Digital Catapult’s immersive tech accelerator, Augmentor, by co-founders Julien Denoel and Christophe Mallet. Its growth will now be supported with additional funding and business support by Vive X.
“With Vive X’s support and investment, we plan to make our solution accessible on more platforms, expand our library of soft skills simulations and develop our analytics solutions to provide clients with behavioural data at scale,” says Mallet in a statement.
“We are pleased to announce Bodyswaps as one of the latest startups in Europe to receive the backing of Vive X. We have had a focus on Enterprise VR with our latest group of investments and believe soft-skills training is an area with particularly high growth potential. Bodyswaps stood out because of its innovative and scalable approach to VR learning that cuts across many different industries,” adds Dave Haynes, Director of Vive X & Developer Ecosystem, HTC Vive.
For those interested in giving Bodyswaps a try you can book a demo and download a trial version on the official website. For further updates on the platform, keep reading VRFocus.
The round was led by Georgian Partners with existing investors GreatPoint Ventures and Alumni Ventures Group taking part. Franklin Templeton and Prologis Ventures joined the round as new investors. The new funding will allow Strivr to further its immersive learning solutions for enterprise use cases, designed to help companies improve workforce engagement and performance.
“With the rapid increase in large enterprises embracing Immersive Learning to improve performance, we are now able to connect employee learning with business outcomes using completely new types of data,” said Tyson Baber, Partner at Georgian Partners, who has joined Strivr’s board of directors. “We believe in Strivr’s team, mission, and methodology, and are very excited to partner with them as they deliver the next generation of predictive, workforce analytics.”
“The Global Spine Congress is very excited to offer a novel course on spinal procedures using the Precision OS virtual reality platform to replace cadavers and teach complex spinal procedures,” said Dr. Jeffrey Wang, Course Chairman and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Neurosurgery, University of Southern California Spine Center. “It appears the future of surgical simulation is now available, and we are extremely pleased to offer this unique opportunity to utilize modern technology and optimize the educational experience.”
Working in the water treatment and chemical distribution sector across Australia and New Zealand, Ixom asked DXC Technologies to develop a custom application to cover those aforementioned needs. Prior to utilising mixed reality (MR) Ixom’s training and learning assessments were conducted at customer sites, requiring travel, scheduling and employee resources to mitigate safety risks.
DXC Technologies has a range of solutions for those companies interested in deploying VR/AR technologies across their workforces such as 
