Newsroom
PTR writes about immersive training, AI and inclusion at work. This page also brings together the peer-reviewed research PTR projects appear in, and the independent coverage of that work.
Featured · 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.
Figures from the hospitals' own evaluations, each one linked to the report it comes from, and the kind of conversation the training puts people in.
Everything PTR has written, newest first. Pick the situation you are trying to train for and the list narrows to it.
Showing all 17 articles.
DEI and inclusion · August 2026 · 5 min read
A published study of VR DEI training at Google, read closely: small samples, real enthusiasm, and why the authors built 25 minutes of debrief into every session.
Healthcare · August 2026 · 3 min read
How hospitals use VR to build workforce culture and psychological safety, plus a governance framework for VR and AI training.
AI and XR · April 2024 · 1 min read
YouTube playlists on diversity, inclusion and XR, including videos from PTR's own VR experiences.
AI and XR · March 2024 · 4 min read
What Apple's headset launch meant for XR, and why it points to a new standard for immersive DEI training.
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.
Sustainability · March 2024 · 2 min read
Why VR training can be a more sustainable alternative to travel-heavy, resource-heavy traditional training.
AI and XR · July 2024 · Photo essay
Photographs from the PTR VR Library's public launch at Smart Precinct NQ: the welcome, the talk, the panel and the first headset demos.
Older writing that readers still come back to: human skills, DEI programs, and the point where AI and virtual reality met.
Training and skills · October 2023 · 4 min read
How immersive VR is changing human skills training, including PTR's Mater Education pilot and what PwC found more broadly.
DEI and inclusion · October 2023 · 3 min read
Why traditional DEI training falls short, and how VR makes DEI education more memorable and engaging.
AI and XR · September 2023 · 4 min read
Where AI and VR intersect today, and how an AI character inside VR could support professional skills practice.
Pieces PTR wrote elsewhere, on food education, nursing leadership and gender equity in operational roles. Each one opens on the publisher's own site.
Training and skills · July 2025 · Case study
How PTR and FoodStream Network use immersive experiences to make health and nutrition lessons more tangible for school students.
Healthcare · June 2025 · Case study
Why immersive practice can help nursing leaders engage with DEI situations beyond traditional training methods.
DEI and inclusion · June 2025 · Case study
How Metro Trains used VR training to address gender equity in operational roles.
DEI and inclusion · June 2025 · Case study
How Etihad Airways brought immersive VR into diversity and inclusion training for its crew.
Longer pieces on how a scenario gets written, tested and delivered with the people who will be standing in it.
AI and XR · May 2025 · Case study
Inside PTR's approach to co-creating VR training for difficult workplace situations and skills practice.
DEI and inclusion · May 2025 · Case study
What PTR learned while working with Google on VR training focused on DEI and perspective-taking.
Healthcare · May 2025 · Case study
How PTR and Mater Education brought realistic VR practice into staff training for psychologically safe conversations.
Awards given to the Equal Reality titles in the PTR VR Library (Equal Reality is a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution), and to PTR's co-founder. Each row names the organisation that gave it, the year, and where it is published.
Leonie Sanderson, PTR's co-founder, was named a finalist in the Lifting Communities category. Her finalist statement, published by WiT with the rest of the shortlist, describes the PTR VR experiences and how they are made.
Recognition for Leonie Sanderson as a Top 10 Applicant in the Regional Category.
Equal Reality named among eleven innovators to watch, from more than 300 companies reviewed, for diversity and inclusion training in VR.
Awarded for VR diversity and inclusion training for Carlton United Brewing.
Awarded to Equal Reality's VR diversity training platform, addressing unconscious bias and equality.
Runner-up recognition for VR diversity and inclusion training addressing unconscious bias and equality.
"I lead a team of passionate changemakers dedicated to creating immersive virtual reality experiences that foster better understanding and improved workplace culture. Built on lived experiences and a robust co-design approach, our VR reflects our core values: trust, community, creativity, and excellence."
Leonie Sanderson
From her finalist statement for the 2024 Lifting Communities Award. Women in Technology Queensland, 2024 finalists (archived)
Recordings from PTR events and partner conversations: the Townsville launch of the PTR VR Library, Rosie the in-headset guide, a short film on seeing a situation through someone else's eyes, and a build for the Accelerator for Enterprising Women.
Studies that PTR project work appears in. Each row carries the authors, the journal, the DOI and a link to the paper itself.
Reports preliminary, self-reported feedback from Google employees who trialled a four-scenario VR DEI training.
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.
The VR module People Tech Revolution built was offered to 1,149 eligible Mayo Clinic nurse and social worker leaders.
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.
A controlled trial finding significant empathy and upstander gains, most still present 6 to 8 months later.
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.
Journals, government statements and event listings that name PTR’s work, newest first.
Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research · 17 April 2025
The use of virtual reality training to enhance empathy: software review
A journal review of VR empathy software that names PTR’s soft-skills courses.
Queensland XR Hub, from InnovationAus · 31 January 2025
Extended Reality Tech is Going Off with a Boom
Mater staff rehearse hard conversations with a virtual patient. The Mater case study.
Smart Precinct NQ · 18 July 2024
Launching PTR Virtual Reality Immersive Library
The launch of the PTR VR Library, titles on inclusion and leadership.
Newsreel · 25 March 2024
Innovative ideas drive access to State funding
Lists the VR Library among the Ignite Ideas Fund recipients.
Queensland Government · 22 March 2024
Funding sparks ideas and ignites small Queensland businesses
The ministerial statement on the $95,000 Ignite Ideas Fund grant for the Library.
ABC News · 2 June 2022
Virtual reality is helping residents with COVID isolation in aged care centres across Queensland
Leonie Sanderson’s aged care VR toolkit, the work that led to PTR.
Apia Good Life
Leaders of the ageing revolution
A profile of Leonie Sanderson and Simon Lowe. Our story.
Innovatia
Queensland is a hub for extended reality tech
How pitch days and events led PTR to Mater Education, its first Queensland client.
Good Design Australia
Carked It! A Card Game About Life, Death and Beyond
Carked It!, listed in the Social Impact category.
Independent coverage that names PTR's work, from a Forbes feature to the state government's own account of the Mater project it co-funded.
Forbes · 13 June 2025
Inside The Leader's Mind: How VR Training Gets Below The Surface
Names PTR's work with Google, Etihad Airways, Mayo Clinic and Mater Education.
Advance Queensland · 10 August 2023
People Tech Revolution's virtual reality training package for Mater hospital
The state government's own account of the Mater project it co-funded.
Queensland XR Hub · 3 May 2023
Mater and People Tech Revolution VR Training Program, Case Study
An independent write-up of the Mater pilot.
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.
"I would give all entrepreneurs, young and old, the same advice: You don't have to be a unicorn. Be a donkey instead!"
Leonie Sanderson
Co-founder, People Tech Revolution. Startup Spotlight, Aerospace Xelerated, 2023
Public funding for the VR Library, and the Boeing-backed accelerator PTR joined in 2023. Each card links to the body that published it.
Advance Queensland · 2024
A $95,000 grant for PTR's Immersive VR Library. Queensland Government Ignite Ideas Fund.
Boeing · 16 January 2023
Aerospace Xelerated announces the startups joining its fourth cohort
PTR was selected for cohort 4 of the Boeing-backed accelerator.
Aerospace Xelerated, on Medium · 20 April 2023
Startup Spotlight: People Tech Revolution
The accelerator's own profile of PTR and its founders.
Leonie Sanderson and Simon Lowe were designing with older Australians long before this company existed. The Ageing Revolution's card game won a 2024 Australian Good Design Award, and their 2017 Vivid Sydney session put the same method in front of a public audience.
Read something here that raises a question for your own team?
Where the stories on this page come from: the builds, the library, and the evidence behind them.
The sectors PTR builds for, plain answers on the technology, and the two founders behind the company.
Newsroom
PTR writes about immersive training, AI and inclusion at work. This page also brings together the peer-reviewed research PTR projects appear in, and the independent coverage of that work.
Featured · 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.
Figures from the hospitals' own evaluations, each one linked to the report it comes from, and the kind of conversation the training puts people in.
Everything PTR has written, newest first. Pick the situation you are trying to train for and the list narrows to it.
Showing all articles.
DEI and inclusion · August 2026 · 5 min read
A published study of VR DEI training at Google, read closely: small samples, real enthusiasm, and why the authors built 25 minutes of debrief into every session.
Healthcare · August 2026 · 3 min read
How hospitals use VR to build workforce culture and psychological safety, plus a governance framework for VR and AI training.
AI and XR · April 2024 · 1 min read
YouTube playlists on diversity, inclusion and XR, including videos from PTR's own VR experiences.
AI and XR · March 2024 · 4 min read
What Apple's headset launch meant for XR, and why it points to a new standard for immersive DEI training.
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.
Sustainability · March 2024 · 2 min read
Why VR training can be a more sustainable alternative to travel-heavy, resource-heavy traditional training.
AI and XR · July 2024 · Photo essay
Photographs from the PTR VR Library's public launch at Smart Precinct NQ: the welcome, the talk, the panel and the first headset demos.
Older writing that readers still come back to: human skills, DEI programs, and the point where AI and virtual reality met.
Training and skills · October 2023 · 4 min read
How immersive VR is changing human skills training, including PTR's Mater Education pilot and what PwC found more broadly.
DEI and inclusion · October 2023 · 3 min read
Why traditional DEI training falls short, and how VR makes DEI education more memorable and engaging.
AI and XR · September 2023 · 4 min read
Where AI and VR intersect today, and how an AI character inside VR could support professional skills practice.
Pieces PTR wrote elsewhere, on food education, nursing leadership and gender equity in operational roles. Each one opens on the publisher's own site.
Training and skills · July 2025 · Case study
How PTR and FoodStream Network use immersive experiences to make health and nutrition lessons more tangible for school students.
Healthcare · June 2025 · Case study
Why immersive practice can help nursing leaders engage with DEI situations beyond traditional training methods.
DEI and inclusion · June 2025 · Case study
How Metro Trains used VR training to address gender equity in operational roles.
DEI and inclusion · June 2025 · Case study
How Etihad Airways brought immersive VR into diversity and inclusion training for its crew.
Longer pieces on how a scenario gets written, tested and delivered with the people who will be standing in it.
AI and XR · May 2025 · Case study
Inside PTR's approach to co-creating VR training for difficult workplace situations and skills practice.
DEI and inclusion · May 2025 · Case study
What PTR learned while working with Google on VR training focused on DEI and perspective-taking.
Healthcare · May 2025 · Case study
How PTR and Mater Education brought realistic VR practice into staff training for psychologically safe conversations.
Awards given to the Equal Reality titles in the PTR VR Library (Equal Reality is a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution), and to PTR's co-founder. Each row names the organisation that gave it, the year, and where it is published.
Leonie Sanderson, PTR's co-founder, was named a finalist in the Lifting Communities category. Her finalist statement, published by WiT with the rest of the shortlist, describes the PTR VR experiences and how they are made.
Recognition for Leonie Sanderson as a Top 10 Applicant in the Regional Category.
Equal Reality named among eleven innovators to watch, from more than 300 companies reviewed, for diversity and inclusion training in VR.
Awarded for VR diversity and inclusion training for Carlton United Brewing.
Awarded to Equal Reality's VR diversity training platform, addressing unconscious bias and equality.
Runner-up recognition for VR diversity and inclusion training addressing unconscious bias and equality.
"I lead a team of passionate changemakers dedicated to creating immersive virtual reality experiences that foster better understanding and improved workplace culture. Built on lived experiences and a robust co-design approach, our VR reflects our core values: trust, community, creativity, and excellence."
Leonie Sanderson
From her finalist statement for the 2024 Lifting Communities Award. Women in Technology Queensland, 2024 finalists (archived)
Recordings from PTR events and partner conversations: the Townsville launch of the PTR VR Library, Rosie the in-headset guide, a short film on seeing a situation through someone else's eyes, and a build for the Accelerator for Enterprising Women.
Studies that PTR project work appears in. Each row carries the authors, the journal, the DOI and a link to the paper itself.
Reports preliminary, self-reported feedback from Google employees who trialled a four-scenario VR DEI training.
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.
Read the summary → · Read the paper (PDF) →
The VR module People Tech Revolution built was offered to 1,149 eligible Mayo Clinic nurse and social worker leaders.
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.
A controlled trial finding significant empathy and upstander gains, most still present 6 to 8 months later.
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.
Journals, government statements and event listings that name PTR’s work, newest first.
Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research · 17 April 2025
The use of virtual reality training to enhance empathy: software review
A journal review of VR empathy software that names PTR’s soft-skills courses.
Queensland XR Hub, from InnovationAus · 31 January 2025
Extended Reality Tech is Going Off with a Boom
Mater staff rehearse hard conversations with a virtual patient. The Mater case study.
Smart Precinct NQ · 18 July 2024
Launching PTR Virtual Reality Immersive Library
The launch of the PTR VR Library, titles on inclusion and leadership.
Newsreel · 25 March 2024
Innovative ideas drive access to State funding
Lists the VR Library among the Ignite Ideas Fund recipients.
Queensland Government · 22 March 2024
Funding sparks ideas and ignites small Queensland businesses
The ministerial statement on the $95,000 Ignite Ideas Fund grant for the Library.
ABC News · 2 June 2022
Virtual reality is helping residents with COVID isolation in aged care centres across Queensland
Leonie Sanderson’s aged care VR toolkit, the work that led to PTR.
Apia Good Life
Leaders of the ageing revolution
A profile of Leonie Sanderson and Simon Lowe. Our story.
Innovatia
Queensland is a hub for extended reality tech
How pitch days and events led PTR to Mater Education, its first Queensland client.
Good Design Australia
Carked It! A Card Game About Life, Death and Beyond
Carked It!, listed in the Social Impact category.
Independent coverage that names PTR's work, from a Forbes feature to the state government's own account of the Mater project it co-funded.
Forbes · 13 June 2025
Inside The Leader's Mind: How VR Training Gets Below The Surface
Names PTR's work with Google, Etihad Airways, Mayo Clinic and Mater Education.
Advance Queensland · 10 August 2023
People Tech Revolution's virtual reality training package for Mater hospital
The state government's own account of the Mater project it co-funded.
Queensland XR Hub · 3 May 2023
Mater and People Tech Revolution VR Training Program, Case Study
An independent write-up of the Mater pilot.
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.
"I would give all entrepreneurs, young and old, the same advice: You don't have to be a unicorn. Be a donkey instead!"
Leonie Sanderson
Co-founder, People Tech Revolution. Startup Spotlight, Aerospace Xelerated, 2023
Public funding for the VR Library, and the Boeing-backed accelerator PTR joined in 2023. Each card links to the body that published it.
Advance Queensland · 2024
A $95,000 grant for PTR's Immersive VR Library. Queensland Government Ignite Ideas Fund.
Boeing · 16 January 2023
Aerospace Xelerated announces the startups joining its fourth cohort
PTR was selected for cohort 4 of the Boeing-backed accelerator.
Aerospace Xelerated, on Medium · 20 April 2023
Startup Spotlight: People Tech Revolution
The accelerator's own profile of PTR and its founders.
Leonie Sanderson and Simon Lowe were designing with older Australians long before this company existed. The Ageing Revolution's card game won a 2024 Australian Good Design Award, and their 2017 Vivid Sydney session put the same method in front of a public audience.
Read something here that raises a question for your own team?
Where the stories on this page come from: the builds, the library, and the evidence behind them.
The sectors PTR builds for, plain answers on the technology, and the two founders behind the company.
