NBN’s regional roadshow with Start Beyond gives Albany students a taste of virtual and augmented reality

NBN brought its Future Ready Regional Roadshow to Albany last week, giving St Joseph’s Catholic College high school students a taste of some of the technology of the future.

The roadshow is visiting 21 regional locations around Australia, showing young people, who NBN says are arguably the country’s biggest internet users, what fast internet can do.

Students spent last Thursday morning putting virtual reality headsets and augmented reality webcams from training company Start Beyond through their paces, learning about how technology can be used to solve real-world problems.

NBN’s WA lead Naomi Evans said reliable, resilient internet connection was becoming ever-more important for regional communities.

“Full fibre not only offers multi-gig speeds but is also far more reliable, more responsive, and more resilient through storms, floods and fires,” she said.

“The scalability of fibre means we’re not only delivering a better service today, but ensuring our network can continue to grow with the rapidly evolving needs of customers for decades to come.

“We are touring some regional Australian schools to showcase the benefits of full fibre to those who are arguably the heaviest users of the internet at home — high school students.”

Start Beyond is one of the leading virtual reality training companies in Australia. Co-founder Angus Stevens said the new technology could change the way regional students learn.

“Virtual and augmented reality technologies transform how people learn, build skills and confidence,” he said.

“For regional communities, where distance can sometimes limit access to specialised training and development opportunities, immersive technologies transport the user out of their classroom and into the real-world simulations, thereby delivering to the users first-hand experience irrespective of where they live.”