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The Naledi3d Factory - VR in Africa for Africa


Johannesburg, 19 May 2005

The Naledi3d Factory uses virtual reality (VR), which is another name for "interactive 3D computer simulations" to create visually interactive training programmes, communicate concepts and to market products.

The company has successfully used VR in areas as diverse as industrial training and safety, heritage, new technology concepts, town planning, as well as community upliftment. In the latter area, The Naledi3D Factory has worked in a number of countries - Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe - and our work has also been used in communities in Kenya and Zambia, as well as at universities in Mozambique and Senegal.

Increasingly, companies are starting to realise the benefits of VR technology.

For example, we have undertaken three major projects for Anglo-Gold Ashanti: a "mud-rush" and haulage-way safety simulator, and recently, a simulation showing the correct procedure in the offloading of ammonia.

Naledi3D Factory has also visualised 12 alternative energy technologies for Eskom - showing that VR is eminently suitable for both high as well as low-tech demonstrations.

With its strong sense of social awareness, the Naledi3d Factory has long been active in education and training. The governmental and donor partners include UNESCO (for whom the company has done a number of projects - for example, a rural hygiene simulation in Nakaseke, Uganda; an HIV/AIDS awareness for Ethiopian teachers and employment awareness for the South African youth, piloted in Alexandra, near Johannesburg; the SA Department of Labour (a lathe and milling machine training simulator) and the WK Kellogg Foundation (a simulation to teach beekeeping skills to emergent farmers in Zimbabwe).

The Naledi3d Factory is particularly proud of the social impact of our Nakaseke Rural Hygiene simulation. The model was installed as a pilot in the local MCT (Multipurpose Community Telecentre) three years ago. MCT staff members now use the content in 24 primary and four secondary schools. Community and church leaders, as well as the local clinic refer to and use it. The "community" has fed back to UNESCO that there has been a significant drop in dysentery and other related disease in the community.

Naledi3d Factory believes VR can play a powerful role in developing areas of the world where poor literacy skills and language barriers pose huge challenges. The intensely visual nature of VR overcomes language as well as literacy barriers by showing content as opposed to telling - and also in a very compelling medium. It is this inherent characteristic that we believe gives VR a very distinct and powerful advantage over conventional text and video-based communication.

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