Technologies

Invention Summary

Virtual reality is a rapidly growing industry that will be used with increasing frequency in the coming years for education and training of individuals. Virtual reality learning environments allow for the user to learn complex and dangerous procedures in an environment where failure is tolerated. They are also very useful in fields where instructors and teachers are not readily available to teach students in a more hands on and intimate setting. An example of where virtual reality learning would be beneficial to implement is the dental education system. It is very expensive to have a dentist teach one student at a time, meaning classes using a virtual reality environment would greatly enhance the learning experience from a standard lecture format. This technology has the potential to be able to bring this to the market by providing virtual reality videos of different experiences by professionals. The initial iteration of this invention would use the inventor’s wide range of expertise to provide a curriculum in dentistry.

Value Proposition

Market Opportunity

This technology would have the potential to target two different initial customers: dentists completing continuing education training to maintain their license and dental schools. In general, a dentist will have to complete on average 20 continuing education credits per year. Also, it is expected that dentists under the age of 45 will utilize this invention which would account for a total of 75,740 dentists as of 2015. The price of continuing education credits appears to be around $50 per credit, therefore a dentist will spend approximately $1,000 per year on continuing education. Assuming a 10% uptake rate and dentists using this technology to complete 10 continuing education credits, the market would reach $3.79 M per year. Furthermore, there are a total of 66 accredited dental schools within the US. In 2015, there were a total of 23,589 students enrolled in a pre-doctoral dental education program. Assuming that this technology would be sold to dental schools at the price of $100 per student enrolled as a yearly subscription basis, a market size with a 10% uptake rate is expected to be $235,900 per year.