Last month, Perth-based FIFO electrical contractor Jace Larke became the first man in the world to use virtual reality to experience live, and in 3D, the birth of his newborn son, Steele, from inside the delivery room – despite standing 4000km away on a remote mine site in Chinchilla, Queensland.

Larke used Samsung’s new Gear VR headset as part of a pilot project by the electronics giant to showcase the technology outside of the entertainment ring.

The project involved setting a 360-degree camera inside the delivery room for live transmission to Larke, who was wearing the headset as well as an earpiece that enabled him to communicate with his wife.

The project was filmed and the story was shared with millions of people around the globe.

And it’s also sparking conversations among mining industry professionals over what opportunities virtual reality could bring to the sector ¬– particularly in regard to reducing contributing factors to mental illness in the FIFO workforce, according to FIFO Families founder and managing director Nicole Ashby.

“I think it’s absolutely brilliant [and] fantastic in terms of having an absent parent being able to use 3D visualisation to watch the birth of their child – it is just brilliant technology,” she said.

“We have spoken with people in the industry and they’ve all commented on how amazing it was and that we should be utilising that technology,” she said.

“The separation from family and friends is a contributing factor to FIFO workers’ sense of wellbeing and mental health [and] missing key milestones is one of the biggest issues, so having it for things like that would be so powerful.”

Australian Mines and Metals Association executive director policy and public affairs Scott Barklamb agreed, describing virtual reality as worth exploring as a step up from the Skype window.

“While perhaps not quite at the level of sophistication seen here, advanced communications technology is used every day at FIFO working villages to ensure employees remain in touch and feel connected to their families back home,” he said.

“Just about every village now has Wi-Fi or other high speed internet facilities to enable skyping and similar web-based communication between family members.

“This is extremely important to all resource employers and is viewed as a necessary and valuable investment in employees’ mental health, wellbeing and productivity. I’m sure any new technology that further advances these outcomes, such as the virtual reality headset seen in this example, would pique the interest of employers seeking to lead the industry in this area.”

But FIFO mental health is just one of many possibilities, with Perth-based Deloitte partner and advanced analytics leader, Coert du Plessis, discussing opportunities for virtual reality to change the way employers train their FIFO workforce.

Describing the classroom training style as “extremely expensive”, “disruptive” and considered by many employees as “a waste of their time”, he says virtual reality has the potential to make training cheaper and more effective.

“Experiential learning is much more powerful than learning through classroom style education [because] people don’t learn by logic, they learn by doing,” he said.

“When you get hurt in an experiment it manifests a real experience on you that has an emotional and logical connection so the learning experience is that much deeper … [and] when you die in a game you do not want to do that again.

“So what virtual reality training techniques offer is a safe environment to fail.”

 Du Plessis recently performed a trial with another virtual reality headset from Oculus Rift.

While industry response was positive, he said a change in leadership mindset was necessary for virtual reality to filter through the mining industry and become standard.

“The technology is easy, the scenario is easy and it’s cheap,” he said.

“The big cost and the big challenge is the executive leadership catching up on this development. 

“Until the head of mining or the chief of operations of a business decides that they want to do this, it’s not going to happen.”

Deloitte and Curtin are looking for industry partners to pursue further development of virtual reality in the mining space. Du Plessis said there a follow-up plan with opportunities in training as well as in remote operations was on the way, but a date was yet to be confirmed.