Between 11 and 13 February, Zoltán Székely had the honour of representing Székely Family and Co. Nonprofit Llc. (SFC) at this year’s Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Academy hosted by the University of Salerno in Italy. The event provided a valuable opportunity to connect with fellow advocates working to strengthen community resilience, while the primary mission was to present our citizen disaster preparedness initiative, B-prepared, to an international audience.
Our goal with B-prepared has always been to give citizens the practical, immersive tools they need to stay safe. At the Academy, we were thrilled to showcase the full suite of B-prepared products to the audience, including Disastropedia.com, VR-prepared, IM-prepared and RU-prepared.
Testing VR-prepared Live with the Experts
While presenting our ecosystem of tools was highly rewarding, the true highlight of the event was our interactive demonstration. We brought VR headsets and a full PCVR setup directly to the Academy so participants could test our VR-prepared serious game firsthand.
To take this a step further, we teamed up with our project partners from the University of Genoa, who added an exciting scientific layer to the demonstration. They brought specialized equipment to measure the participants’ brain activity and physiological responses in real-time as they navigated the virtual disasters.
Proof That It Works
What we saw was incredibly exciting. The physiological data showed that participants were genuinely afraid when initially facing the disasters depicted in the virtual reality environment. However, by their second or third run-through of the game, their responses showed them becoming significantly calmer and more in control.
This is exactly the point of VR-prepared: to build muscle memory and psychological resilience in a safe environment so that panic is reduced in a real-world emergency. We are thrilled to finally have empirical evidence that our approach works!
Looking Ahead
While there is still a lot of data analysis to be done before we have publishable scientific results, this initial evidence is a massive milestone for SFC and the B-prepared project. The intersection of virtual reality, cognitive science and disaster preparedness is a fascinating frontier, and we are incredibly proud of the team and all the partners for pushing these boundaries.
Stay tuned as we continue to process the data and share our official findings in the near future!
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