Newsroom
Reporting from People Tech Revolution on immersive training, AI and inclusion at work. This page collects our own writing, the independently peer-reviewed research our project work appears in, and where that work has been covered elsewhere.
8 articles - 3 peer-reviewed papers - 8 press and recognition items - last reviewed August 2026
How hospitals are using VR to build workforce culture and psychological safety, drawing on PTR's own work with Mater Education and Mayo Clinic, plus a governance framework for hospitals considering VR and AI training.
Showing all 8 articles.
Healthcare · August 2026 · 3 min read
How hospitals are using VR to build workforce culture and psychological safety, drawing on PTR's own work with Mater Education and Mayo Clinic, plus a governance framework for hospitals considering VR and AI training.
Sources: Mater Education program evaluation, Mayo Clinic JONA paper
AI and XR · April 2024 · 1 min read
A curated set of YouTube playlists covering diversity, inclusion and the XR and VR landscape, including videos from PTR's own VR experiences.
Sources: PTR YouTube playlists. Updated August 2026.
AI and XR · March 2024 · 4 min read
What the launch of Apple's headset meant for the XR industry, and why we think it points towards a new standard for immersive DEI training.
Sources: Macworld (Haslam, 2024), CNBC (Leswing, 2023). Updated August 2026.
Training and skills · March 2024 · 2 min read
How VR and AR are changing remote collaboration, from presence and accessibility to more inclusive virtual events.
Sources: PTR reporting. Updated August 2026.
Sustainability · March 2024 · 2 min read
Why VR training can be a more environmentally sustainable alternative to travel-heavy, resource-heavy traditional training.
Sources: PTR reporting. Updated August 2026.
Training and skills · October 2023 · 4 min read
How immersive VR is changing human skills training, including PTR's pilot with Mater Education, and what independent PwC research has found about VR training more broadly.
Sources: PwC VR study (2020), Mater Education pilot
DEI and inclusion · October 2023 · 3 min read
Why traditional DEI training methods fall short, and how VR can make DEI education more memorable and engaging.
Sources: PwC VR study, Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. Updated August 2026.
AI and XR · September 2023 · 4 min read
Where AI and VR intersect today, from entertainment and training to therapeutic use, and how an AI-powered VR avatar could be used for professional skills practice.
Sources: PTR reporting. Updated August 2026.
PTR's project work appears in three independently peer-reviewed papers. Each was written by named authors and went through its venue's own review before acceptance.
Bursztein, E., Brown, K., Sanderson, L., and Kelley, P. G. (2024). In Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '24), May 11-16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA. DOI: 10.1145/3613905.3637128.
Reports preliminary, self-reported feedback from Google employees who trialled a four-scenario VR DEI training. The authors list open concerns about hardware, cost, fidelity and novelty effects.
Nelson, D. E., Burkhartzmeyer, H. L., Kiker, K. M., Simiele, K. C., Proulx, A. L., Arcand, L. L., Alcock, L. R., Frederick, R. K., Phelan, S., and Storsveen, A. S. (2024). The Journal of Nursing Administration (JONA), 54(11), 638-644. DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000001503.
Ten Mayo Clinic authors describe rolling a VR DEI module, built in partnership with Equal Reality, out to 1,149 nurse and social worker leaders, and report the programme's own survey results.
Phelan, S. M., Burkhartzmeyer, H. L., Standen, E. C., Arcand, L. L., Kiker, K. M., Simiele, K. C., Proulx, A. L., Storsveen, A. S., Deng, Y., Foote, J. M., Kumbamu, A., Prakaashana, A. N., and Nelson, D. E. (2025). Social Science & Medicine, 366, 117648. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117648.
A quasi-experimental controlled trial of the same programme. It finds significant increases in empathy and upstander-behaviour predictors immediately after the VR session, with most gains still present 6 to 8 months later.
Independent coverage, awards and public programs that reference PTR's work.
Forbes - 13 June 2025
Inside The Leader's Mind: How VR Training Gets Below The Surface
Examined how immersive VR training builds empathy and drives behavioural change in leadership development, naming PTR's work with Google, Etihad Airways, Mayo Clinic and Mater Education.
Queensland Government - 2024
Awarded PTR a $95,000 grant for its Immersive VR Library project. This is grant funding, not an award or a claim about the product's effectiveness.
Advance Queensland - Innovation story
People Tech Revolution's virtual reality training package for Mater hospital
The Queensland Government's own account of the Mater VR training project it co-funded.
Queensland XR Hub
Mater and People Tech Revolution VR Training Program - Case Study
An independent write-up of the Mater pilot, including how it was delivered across five Queensland locations.
Smart Precinct NQ - 18 July 2024
Immerse yourself in the future: transforming communication and leadership through VR
The public launch of PTR's VR Training Library, with a talk on the effectiveness of VR training, live demos and an expert panel.
Boeing - 2023
Aerospace Xelerated announces the startups joining its fourth cohort
PTR was selected for cohort 4 of the Boeing-backed Aerospace Xelerated accelerator.
Aerospace Xelerated
Startup Spotlight: People Tech Revolution
The accelerator's own profile of PTR and its founders.
Women in Technology Queensland - 2024
PTR co-founder Leonie Sanderson was a finalist for the 2024 Lifting Communities Award.
Work by PTR's founders before PTR, including The Ageing Revolution's Good Design Award winning card game and their 2017 Vivid Sydney session, is told in full on our Our Story page.
The articles dated 2023 and 2024 first appeared on ptrvr.com and were brought across when this site launched. Where a card above says "Updated August 2026", that article carries a dated note explaining what has changed since.
Figures attributed to a client, such as Mater Education or Mayo Clinic, come from that organisation's own program evaluation and are labelled as such. Findings from the peer-reviewed papers are labelled separately and link to the paper itself.
Where an article rests on outside research, that study is named in the article and on its card above. Cards marked "PTR reporting" are our own commentary and cite no external study. Reading times are estimates from each article's word count at 220 words a minute.