Company background:
2-Enable are a team of experts with over 20 years of rehabilitation experience, delivering co-ordinated fast response and specialist solutions throughout Northern Ireland. They embrace the physical, emotional, cognitive and psychological aspects of the individual and tailor their intervention to enable them to reach their full potential. They currently offer services in the areas of Occupational Health, Occupational Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and In-service Training.
Challenge:
2-Enable wanted to create a range of virtual reality (VR) environments for their Ancient Ancestors platform which could be used as an alternative therapy for their and provide an opportunity for treating anxiety through exploring Ireland’s natural and ancient sites. However, they did not have the required skillset to fully develop an effective VR tool which could be accessed via Oculus VR headsets or mobile devices.
Solution:
In order to overcome this obstacle, 2-Enable made contact with North West Regional College (NWRC) Business Support Centre (BSC) who assisted them to successfully apply for a £5,000 Invest Northern Ireland Innovation Voucher which was used to develop bespoke VR content. For example, 360VR and VR technology was used to allow 2-Enable to recreate key historic events at real life locations. This was achieved by using a mixture of real-life footage from the site and 3D generated images to visually tell the sites history and its key events.
Impact:
2-Enable have successfully created a range of virtual reality environments which can be used as alternative therapy and provide an opportunity for treating anxiety through exploring Ireland’s natural and ancient sites.
A spokesperson from 2-Enable described the benefits of working with NWRC BSC via the Invest NI Innovation Voucher scheme: ’’I’m really happy I now have an educational tourism product for everyone to use and especially one that enables those with disabilities to see the sites of our Ancient Ancestors. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the colleges business support team who helped me avail of an Invest Northern Ireland innovation voucher.’’
