January 21, 2020
At a Glance
Advances in immersive technologies create new opportunities for companies, educational institutions, and training providers to build engaging, effective, and affordable systems for training people in simulated environments.
At JFFLabs, we scan markets to identify promising technology solutions that are poised to generate significant social impact and are aligned to important innovations, such as immersive learning. For this market scan, we partnered with Walmart to study the immersive learning marketplace and organize solutions around social impact. Immersive learning refers to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other simulated learning technologies.
About the Market Scan
- Who we include: An examination of the immersive learning market, including a map of companies that represent a range of solutions we see in the market today. We present impact opportunities, technology trends, market dynamics, and impact investment insights.
- Who we feature: 58 companies organized and mapped to our impact priorities, with deep dives on 11 innovators to watch. These 11 mission-aligned companies represent trends, momentum—and the volume, if you will—that create significant business aligned social impact. Each is a potentially transformative innovation, or being led by inspiring founders and teams that we believe in.
We’re excited to support the work of JFFLabs to bring immersive learning and work-based learning to the retail industry and beyond.
Andy Trainor, vice president, Walmart US Learning
How We Select Companies
At JFFLabs, we create social impact for workers, learners, businesses, and traditional systems. We partner with companies with established products, market fit, and the ability to deliver meaningful social impact as their businesses grow. Our impact priorities include:
- Good jobs and careers
- Education and training
- Equity and inclusiveness
- Advancement and economic security
The success of immersive learning systems is tied to their ability to simulate real-world experiences that enable learners to master new skills through “hands-on” practice in virtual environments. Gone are the days when training was limited to, say, watching a video or sitting in a classroom listening to an instructor.
We now have greater opportunities than ever before to use immersive learning technology transform the entire education and training ecosystem—from higher education to apprenticeships, corporate training programs and all other forms of on-the-job training.
The JFFLabs Impact Accelerator identifies and scales today’s best immersive learning solutions, highlighting those that generate meaningful social impact as well as significant business value in frontline occupations and various sectors of the economy by enabling the use and scaled adoption of new learning models and technologies.
