By Heidi Hutchins, GateWay Community College Business Division Chair & Faculty
Bright, young college/university students hone their skills in computer coding, app development, script writing, and digital design in Hull, England. Upon graduating, they could have accepted jobs in London or abroad, but they liked Hull. After all, Hull College is in a beautiful location, offers an excellent quality of life, and due to an excellent communications infrastructure, boasts some of the fastest Internet speeds anywhere.
The Hull College Group has a long tradition of furthering higher education and training. Hull has a fast growing digital sector and a dedication to preparing students for work and to become job creators. Graham Toswe, principal at Hull College, encourages all the faculty and staff at Hull to work closely with employers to ensure that their courses are helping students to learn the skills in demand by employers. Julia Davidson, dean of Faculty, Business and Science, wanted to develop a current, relevant digital design program.
As a result of these converging forces, the strategic partnership with “Platform Studios” was created. Hull College provides free workspace for entrepreneurs in the digital design field. The entrepreneurs in turn, mentor students and provide an opportunity for them to practice and develop their skills working on real world projects. Platform Studios also hosts a “Platform Expo” each year at Hull, which has become the largest gaming event in the United Kingdom.
Louis Deane, Studio Commander, Gateway Interactive, was one of the first entrepreneurs to participate in Platform Studios. Deane is also the co-founder of VISR Virtual Reality. The following year, Tim Roth, Heather MacDonald, and Vincent Hui formed a company called “Smashed Crab Studio” and also joined Platform Studios. Platform Studios has an extremely collaborative environment, so the developers from Smashed Crab Studio began working on a variety of projects, including work on VISR Virtual Reality project. Now the entrepreneurs at Platform are getting ready to launch their first major commercial product. The patented product, VISR, is a wearable device combined with a mobile phone app, that uses a mobile phone to create a virtual world. The VISR has two lenses and the user simply inserts a mobile phone with the appropriate app into the device. VISR is lightweight and expected to be very affordable—around 20 British Pounds. I had an opportunity to try it out to look at a virtual reality that included a roller coaster. It was quite stunning. As I turned my head, I could see a 360-degree view of the virtual space.
The entrepreneurs have been talking to a number of industries about applications including education, training, and fire science. Platform Studios has piqued the interest of a number of companies, including Microsoft, which has opened new partnership and funding opportunities for the entrepreneurs and the college.
Hull College is in the process of developing international partnerships and is exploring a variety of collaboration opportunities with the Maricopa Community College District.