The health and care metaverse

Albert “Skip” Rizzo is a Clinical and Neuro- Psychologist, and Director of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies Medical VR Lab. He is also a research professor in both the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and in the School of Gerontology. Skip conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of VR systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation.  

In the psychological domain, he has directed the development/implementation of the Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan VR exposure therapy system for combat-related PTSD and is involved in translating these simulation assets for PTSD assessment and prevention (stress resilience). His cognitive work has addressed the use of VR applications to test and train cognitive functioning. In the motor domain, he develops VR game-based applications to promote rehabilitation in persons with CNS dysfunction (e.g., stroke and TBI). He is also involved in the creation of intelligent virtual human patients for clinical training and for creating online virtual human healthcare guides for breaking down barriers to care in psychological health and TBI.  

In 2010, he received the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Practice of Trauma Psychology for his R&D work on VR exposure therapy for PTS and in 2015, he received the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics “Pioneer in Medicine” award. He received the 2019 American Psychological Association Society for Military Psychology Presidential Citation for his trauma work and was recently awarded the 2020 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Innovation Award. In his spare time, he plays rugby, listens to music, rides his motorcycle and thinks about new ways that VR can have a positive impact on clinical care by dragging the field of psychology, kickin’ and screamin’, into the 21st Century.

Dr Neil Ralph is the Head of Technology Enhanced Learning at Health Education England (HEE TEL), leading a national function within the NHS that aims to maximise the impact of learning technologies and simulation based education in how we train and educate the health and care workforce. The HEE TEL team works with local, regional and national system partners to leverage these approaches in order to meet their workforce learning needs; underpinned by evidence-based approaches. The team supports access to learning technologies through its capacity to develop and deliver learning at scale via its national digital learning services; elearning for healthcare, Digital Learning Solutions and the Learning Hub. It also seeks to expand and enhance the adoption of XR and other immersive technologies through a range of approaches, alongside support for the educational workforce through its faculty programmes and enhancing the learning environment through its TEL maturity assessment. Neil is also a practicing clinical psychologist and academic lecturer.

As Chief Executive of Ideas Crucible, Dan advisors and secures investment capital for technology start-ups and scale-up working leading venture capitalist and angel investors, with a particular focus in health, VR, AI, and payments. As a former entrepreneur he has had four start-ups two of which were exited through acquisition.
A large part of his career was focused on sourcing innovative tech start-ups and scaleups from around the world and launching multimillion new business ventures for brands including Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Novartis, BT, and IAG.
He was a Chief Information Officer for BT Group level, where he led innovations from idea into launch across all market facing divisions, including a £25M health business, as well as launching their mobile business in Spain and Italy.
He is the long-standing Editor-in-Chief of Virtual Reality (Springer Nature) and studied a Doctorate in the application of artificial intelligence to virtual environments. A Charted Engineer, inventor on 9 patents, and has lectured and published widely.
He is Non-Executive for a Property Tech a Cyber Security company, and board advisor to a Sportech and Fintech. He also advisors several venture capital funds.