New Work: How Virtual Reality And AI Connect Peripheries to Metropolises

Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0 broadcast that digital transformation has the potential to ensure quality lives for all, including quality work and quality living. The New Work movement in particular strives to create new forms of collaboration and experimenting as well as free access to knowledge in a virtual learning landscape. Virtual reality and AI are at the heart of the idea to use cyberspace for modelling problems and finding real-world solutions. Peripheries face the challenge to partake of innovation while dealing with an extreme shortage of skilled manpower. The state-funded alliance MR4B – Mixed Reality for Business - comprises of companies, universities and technology developing firms. All regional actors, they implement pilot projects that make Mixed Reality and AI accessible for industrial enterprises in peripheral regions, thus linking them to the innovation hubs and labor market concentrated in Berlin. These innovative technologies promise to generate innovation through a free flow of knowledge, to enhance economic competitiveness and sustainability by means of faster and resource-efficient processes and to attract manpower by offering inclusive, cutting-edge technologies and remote work. The alliance strives to build an innovation ecosystem focussing on Mixed Reality for industrial applications and to create synergies for thriving peripheries.