The Silver Wings VR headset
As COVID-19 continues to make a negative impact on many different industries and restrict customers’ movement up to an individual level, it has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of adoption of new technologies in various verticals.
One of which is VR. During the pandemic, the technology is gaining more attention among emerging industries such as e-sports and edutech, according to our recent interview with SOSV General Partner William Bao Bean.
In the medical and healthcare sector, as the public is being encouraged to limit visits to hospitals for the most urgent care and procedure, VR is coming to save the day. There are different ways that hospitals are using this technology; while patient consultations seem to be the obvious choice, staff training and anatomy reconstruction operations are also the way to go.
To understand more about the use of VR in healthcare, e27 interviews Silver Wings founder Kapil Chhabra. Silver Wings is a Singapore-based VR company that provides VR solution for a range of industry from automotive to tourism. The product that they offer includes a multi-user hologram table.
In the healthcare sector, Silver Wings is working with clinics in Singapore, such as the FeM Surgery group at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Novena and MacPherson. The project involves the use of VR as a visualisation tool to help patients understand surgery processes better.
Apart from that, Silver Wings also help medical students in their training process through the use of their technology.
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The following is an edited excerpt of the interview:
Why do you think there has been a newfound interest by investors in the VR industry?
For an investor, it’s all about how scalable a product or solution is. Since VR is quite project-based, a lot of companies don’t have ready-made products that they can sell to the mass.
Back in 2014, to buy a VR headset would cost thousands of dollars, therefore people did not have access to the right content. But not anymore, people can now get VR headsets for a way lesser amount, which is why there is a growing interest.
How are you working with doctors to improve your products?
The best part about this technology is that as soon as any feature is updated, it is received very quickly. So from the product side, improvements are constantly happening. From the sector side, we do our best to enhance the medical process and try to minimise inefficiencies by first creating prototypes as solutions.
For example, before an operation, a doctor needs to talk to a patient about the medical procedures, what medicines they take, etcetera. All this is just a replication of things. Does a doctor really need to do that? Can it be done by a virtual doctor? So it’s really about improving productivity more than anything else.
What can be achieved if VR is more widely adopted in healthcare?
It is definitely a technology that can help the industry in many ways, especially for training. Imagine the kind of pressure that builds up for first-time doctors. And imagine using VR to replicate the whole process.
They can experience the same scenario and then get better used to the pressure of handling the real situation.
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How accurately can it replicate something as crucial as a doctor training?
It really depends on company to company how they approach it and how photorealistic their experience is. Generally, anyone who wears a headset can get overwhelmed because of the nature of the visual experience.
I do agree that sometimes the “real” feeling is not there, especially during training. But in terms of learning, it is much more enhanced. Currently, we are all learning through a video, which is some kind of a 3D model –but VR is beyond that. Imagine learning through a medium which is much closer to the real world.
Which countries in your opinion are leading in terms of VR adoption?
The best part about this technology is that as soon as anything is updated, it will be all received very quickly. But if I had to pick I would say that the US is pretty ahead because they are the ones who are researching it. In the Asian side, I would say China is really leading the way.
What do you think can be done to accelerate the pace of adoption in Southeast Asia region?
There’s an awareness gap. We need to create platforms and events where people can come together and talk about the solutions that they have created. There has to be a better platform where people can easily notice and connected with each other.
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Image Credit: Lucrezia Carnelos
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