The XR Association (XRA) hosted a reception on January 26 with the Congressional Tech Staff Association (CTSA) to showcase virtual and augmented reality technologies and their limitless potential to support workforce development, training, and up-skilling.

Congressional staff interacted with hardware provided by XRA member companies including the Cognixion ONE device, HTC Vive, Meta Quest, and Microsoft HoloLens, and software developed by Unity, Foundry 45, Friends with Holograms, and others.

“Advocacy is one of the key pillars of the XR Association. Educating policymakers about the limitless future of the XR industry is core to our mission,” said Elizabeth Hyman, XRA’s CEO. “We are so pleased to partner with the CTSA, and grateful to co-chairs Naomi Zeigler with Senator Carper and Dan Cheever with Senator Young for their vision and leadership to bring us together for a trip into virtual and augmented reality.”

On the Meta Quest, attendees experienced first-hand the workforce training possibilities of virtual reality with Foundry 45’s pump simulator training and a module developed by Friends with Holograms to help people understand workplace exclusion and unconscious bias.

Members of the Microsoft HoloLens team demonstrated the device’s hand-tracking technology, guiding attendees to use their hands to interact with virtual objects in an augmented reality setting. Attendees were also able to manipulate large-scale models of human organs, an especially helpful use case for training medical professionals.

On the HTC Vive and with software developed by Unity, attendees visited museums like the Louvre and the Museum of Other Realities and interacted with “Alice in Wonderland” as they had never before.

Attendees interacted with the Cognixion ONE, the world’s first brain computer interface with augmented reality wearable speech generating device, which enables users with a wide variety of physical and neurological abilities to access augmented reality.

Learn more about the Congressional Tech Staff Association here and click here to learn more about encouraging Congress to support the XR industry.