philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

A new VR program called SurviVR aims to train employees how to deal with an active shooter situation in the workplace

The program works with HTC Vive,...

An active shooter situation is when an armed person or people actively shoot in a confined, populated area with the intent to kill. There were 20 such situations in the United States last year and 20 the year before, according to FBI statistics, resulting in a total of 231 deaths. This year saw the deadliest active shooter situation in U.S. history, with 49 people killed in a nightclub in Orlando.

SurviVR is the result of a collaboration between The Safety Group, which does workplace safety trainings, and Human Condition Safety, which specializes in technology for workplace safety. The companies consulted with members of the FBI and the NYPD, various intelligence analysts, Navy Seals and other security, terrorism and survival experts to create the program.

In the training scenario, users have four options. They can lock themselves in the office. They can hide, perhaps in the office closet. They can run for an exit. Or they can use something in the office—a computer or a cup or a pair of scissors—as a weapon to fight the shooter. This is an improvement on standard active shooter training, Gallo says, which typically teaches people to lock themselves in place and hide. This “lock down” method is often ineffective, he says, and has resulted in numerous deaths in recent years.
Similarly, SurviVR can help identify the “alpha males and alpha females” who would be especially helpful in an active shooter scenario, Gallo says.

See the full story here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/face-active-shooter-virtual-reality-you-may-be-better-prepared-to-survive-real-life-encounter-180960827/?no-ist