Bett Asia Award 2025 -Best Use of Tech in Higher Education

3D, Learning

Bett Asia Award 2025 🎉 for Best Use of Tech in Higher Education

This year, back in October, a project I was collaborating on won the Best Use of Tech in Higher Education at the Bett Asia Award 2025. We were such a small team, yet making waves. Go team!

Every year, a significant amount of money is spent on bringing firefighters from all over the country to train in specialised learning facilities of the Australian Rescue Firefighters Services (ARFFS) in Melbourne. With Airservices Australia revising their structure and budget, one of the initiatives I was lucky to participate in was an augmented reality training programme, developed mostly by our in-house coding guru, Ray.

All the risks, none of the danger.

Whenever your training needs involve a situation that is either very expensive or dangerous, extended reality (XR) training is a strong candidate solution, e.g., virtual or augmented reality. In our case, it was both expensive and dangerous. Setting aeroplanes on fire or exploding engines is not something the organisation would look forward to – especially training new staff on a regular basis.

Enter Augmented Reality (AR) simulations.

With training built in a 3D environment, you get to set any number of aeroplanes on fire, explode any engines, load any aircraft model in the simulation, etc. The other and better alternative is learning how to safely extinguish the fire, not let the engine explode and save the virtual people, which is your ultimate goal.

Why does it work so well?

There are several ways to answer that question. Besides the obvious cost savings and health safety, learners engage more and learn better and faster than with any other medium.

→ A cool explanation (based on research, neuroscience and psychology): Work by Mel Slater and Maria V. Sanchez‑Vives and others shows the brain does not fully distinguish between real and virtual bodies when sensory cues are aligned. This supports the idea that the “thinking brain” (prefrontal, reflective systems) can know it is simulated, but subcortical and sensory systems (amygdala, insula, somatosensory cortex) still respond as if it were real, driving emotion, arousal, and encoding into memory.

→ (In English, please) That means, even though you consciously know the training is a fake simulation, your sensory brain still gets you the full experience. On well-designed trainings, you are there! The situation must be addressed. And if you succeed, you will not only learn but also remember what you had to do and how it made you feel.

And the stats keep coming, showing XR works well.
  • A PwC study on VR soft‑skills training found VR learners were up to 4 times faster to train than classroom learners, more emotionally connected to content, and reported 275% higher confidence in applying skills.
  • Case reports from fire and safety training providers using XR show higher motivation, repeated voluntary practice, and better recall of life‑saving procedures compared with traditional fire safety instruction.
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