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HTC Corporation (HTC) is a global leader in smartphone and virtual reality innovation and design. It laid the foundation for Taiwan’s technological innovation and has been investing in the sustainable development of Taiwan’s XR talents.
On November 30th, HTC once again announced the fruit of its deep talent cultivation: the TMU (Taipei Medical University) Instructional VR Resource Center for Food Safety. HTC and TMU have been collaborating on cultivating professional food safety talents using innovative technology. They have developed high-quality food safety VR teaching and training content to promote the digital transformation of Taiwan’s food factories and enhance the development of Taiwan’s food safety industry.
Taipei Medical University established the first College of Nutrition in Taiwan in 2016. In the following year, it established the first and only School of Food Safety in Taiwan, which currently remains the only such school in Taiwan. The School of Food Safety is dedicated to cultivating future food-related professionals through innovative teaching methods. This time through collaboration with HTC, it is introducing VR content into its teaching curriculum design. Using the molecular structure software platform jointly developed by HTC and the San Diego Nanome startup team in the United States, students can be immersed into a three-dimensional molecular structure space to greatly enhance their understanding of speed, learning interest, and learning effectiveness, and accumulate research energy for TMU.
Associate Professor Hui-Ting Yang from the Taipei Medical University School of Food Safety uses virtual reality to conduct food safety education. This allows food professionals to fully experience the actual work process in a virtual working environment such as a restaurant, factory, or central kitchen. It enables new employees or students to train in a safe environment to understand in advance the working environment and related equipment without having to enter the field to operate. It effectively prevents errors and subsequent business losses caused by their unfamiliarity with the operations. In the VR kitchen, trainees can inspect and accept food materials, food prep, cook, and serve food. Important control points for hazard analysis can also be incorporated into the observation training, and simulated food serving stress and fires in the kitchen can also be incorporated for contingency response training. Trainees can accumulate a large amount of authentic experience within a short time and acquire the ability to face the workplace.
Raymond Pao, Senior Vice President of HTC, said, “The VR scenario simulation training has been implemented in teaching and learning in diverse types of businesses and schools. Through immersive learning experience, it can simulate real emergencies and reinforce correct contingency response-ability in students. Students can also use the Virti 360 VR platform partnered with HTC to easily create their own VR teaching materials. They can quickly produce all kinds of VR content according to their learning syllabus. Through industry-academia collaboration, relevant teaching materials can be imported into the employee training program of domestic smart food factories. Employees can then repeatedly practice relevant SOP in simulated VR scenarios to strengthen their learning effectiveness, thus benefitting the domestic food safety industry and talent cultivation.”
Professor Yue-Hwa Chen, Director of the Taipei Medical University School of Food Safety Department said: “I am very pleased that we have the opportunity to collaborate with the HTC VIVE Medical VR division to build the first Instructional VR Resource Center for Food Safety in the country. We are constantly thinking about how to increase the learning interest and effectiveness of students. The integration with VR technology has given us new ideas in our course designs and the opportunity to implement teaching materials into transformation counseling for Taiwan’s food processing factories. This teaching center leads teaching assistants to smart food factories where they can discuss the employee SOP training process with the factory managers. Through the production of VR teaching materials and teaching implementation in the food field, employee errors in-field operation can be reduced, and food contamination due to improper handling can also be reduced. So, it is quite helpful for improving the work quality and training of food industry workers.”
