Shannon Putman: Hello everybody.
Welcome to your next favorite episode of Putman's Podcast Pops.
We've got a special one today and I am here with Dr. Laurent Da Dalto, AKA from Mimbus.
He is the CEO and founder and I cannot wait for you to hear more from him.
Welcome.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Hello, Shannon.
Very excited to be with you today.
Thank you.
Shannon Putman: Yes.
How are you doing?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Doing great.
Doing great from Chicago right now.
Shannon Putman: So, would you please go ahead and just tell us kind of a little bit about you and your background and let everybody know who you are.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Sure.
Sure.
So yeah I'm kind of a geek.
I started to play with the idea when I was 12 and so I spend all my curriculum working in computer science and all that things.
I get my PhD in virtual reality before this last millennium.
So, you know, very old prehistoric age off of VR.
And then I created members company in France in 2011.
Working on immersive training for traits.
I get that because I met a guy near retirement at the beginning of this millennium.
And that guy was a welding expert.
And he told me I should have a look at the welding and the welding education and how I can use this, the technology I was used to apply to automotive, to erotic, to space, to very expensive area for his training.
And I was laughing at him initially.
And then I build up the first welding simulator and release it in 20, in 2003.
And I saw the the impact the needs globally for this solution.
And that's what made me decide to work off all my time on that since since then.
Shannon Putman: That's fascinating because I believe you would be known as one of the OGs, the original gangsters of VR, which I completely respect and love.
And so you've been doing it for a minute now, so putting your time in and, you know, since Mimbus inception in 2011, how have you seen the technology kind of change and how have you guys stayed up with those changes?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: The technology changed a lot since then and the speed of the, this changes is also improving and growing every month.
The way, what I, the big change.
For me, since then is the way people get this change.
You know, before COVID before, well, 10 years ago, even three years ago, it was quite complicated to educate people and to make them understand how they can use this technology efficiently for education.
Today, they are really more, informed, ready.
VR is not something unknown.
It's not something quite new.
Lots of people can get stand alone, et cetera.
So the, you know, the mentality change.
Tend to change and people seems more open now and ready to understand the way it has to be used so that the things that change a lot the way we are providing the solution.
The technologies also improve, of course, but the way people accepted this technology is the most important change.
For me.
Yeah.
Shannon Putman: that's a fantastic point because a lot of the times when new technology comes up, we always hear this is the next greatest thing and it's a fad.
And, you know, and I've always had to fight the idea that people think that, you know, VR is just a game and it doesn't actually have that learning potential like they want.
And the.
It really does have.
So, especially with, you know, in, in vocational training, how are you seeing and how is Mimbus using VR and even potentially the new buzzword being AI, but I'm not as interested necessarily in that yet, but how are you guys specifically using it to enhance the vocational training in with welding and even outside with all of it?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: And you really make it a point.
These things about VR as a game is really what makes the difference between VR experience and VR learning.
Shannon Putman: I'm like, I'm sorry.
I love that.
I was like, Ooh, I might have to steal that, but I will give you credit
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: No, really, that's a big thing.
I mean, it's really, VR experience is a game and we all experience that, be it cyber or that's, you know, existing heat.
Some of you may have already tried out but that is really the wow effect and that, that's what people were looking initially, like most of our customer vocational school and so on, they were using VR for open houses.
just to attract kids to say, look, it's fun.
So you come and you enroll in my school, but then Nobody were using it for training because the trainer are not prepared because the curriculum is not designed for that.
So, well, different things.
And also in terms of technology, because the content that we provided to them was just a VR experience.
What makes a difference between a VR learning solution is that you combine VR with data analyze and also learning control in a way.
Now with AI, that can also process the data we're collecting through the VR experience, we can really turn the our solution into a learning assistant for the teacher.
So it's you VR, practicing, their skills are analyzed.
Processed sent to the teacher, AI will help to understand what's happening, and the AI will say to the teacher, Hey, this student has an issue, you should have a look at him, or this student probably need to be focused on that.
So, would you accept if I'm driving the curriculum on that way, it would be okay for you?
And that change, that create individual follower, speed up the learning, and that What changed the XR experience into the learning experience.
Shannon Putman: That's incredibly profound.
And I love that you said it's an assistant and it's still checks in with the educator, you know, cause one of the biggest worries is especially with educators is that they're giving up control or they're being replaced.
And so understanding that no, you are still a part of the process and you are still the main point of instruction.
This is just a tool to help you, I think is one of the messages that also now has been a little bit off putting for some educators and that, you know, we continue to try to fight.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Yeah.
Shannon Putman: that was, I love how you explained that.
That was really profound.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: that's a pain.
What I'm saying that changed, it changed for the instructor because it's very painful for them.
I understand.
I mean, I was a teacher at the university.
I understand that it's complicated when you think that something can replace you.
Or, if it's not the case, it's something that the student are confident with, and you are not, often.
So, you know, that's something frightening anyway.
It's frightening for you.
So we spent a lot of time, and now we also have MEMBERS Academy, which is a full training program for the instructor.
So we spent a lot of time in creating programs.
To onboard the instructor just to make them confident and to make them understand that they still are essential, but they have an amazing assistant that will drive, that will speed up all the boring thing they have to look for or look at, and they don't want to and just focus on their amazing skill, which is driving kids to a job.
Shannon Putman: That's fantastic.
Especially because you know, me and my philosophy of about, we have to actually teach educators the technology and not just a plug and play solution.
So I love that you have the ability to support them and.
And you're like, look, we get it.
We know it's hard.
So with Memphis Academy, that's incredibly exciting.
Congratulations on that.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Thanks a lot.
Now we are very motivated by that.
Really, we're really thinking that it's.
All the key is really that the tool is just a tool, whatever tool you're providing is just a tool.
Smartboard, for instance, that's been used and deployed everywhere.
And nobody just, most of the people just, you know, displaying a PowerPoint presentation on the smart box.
So what is the interest of that?
The same for XR.
So we really need to have the instructor in the middle of the picture.
Shannon Putman: Absolutely.
That's always my analogy was the smart port.
So I love it.
One of the other things that I think kind of makes you guys unique is the Vulcan platform.
And so can you kind of, and if I. And married to a Trekkie.
My mom is a big Trek fan.
And so I, of course also love Star Trek, but when people hear Vulcan, of course, I think they instantly think, you know, Spock and stuff like that.
And it is just as awesome.
I would like to say, but could you kind of let us know a little bit about that?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Yeah, Vulcan.
Yeah, the name was selected by the God of metal forming in Greece, in Greek mythology.
That's how it comes from.
Shannon Putman: Like it.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Yeah, so, so Vulcan is has been designed as an open platform in a way anybody that creating XR experience.
For learning can connect to Vulcan.
Vulcan is a cloud platform.
You can register to it saying, Look, I am an XR experience training on masonry on drywall, whatever.
And then you have to tell him what kind of skills or what kind of transfer skills or what kind of sensors.
We call that learning sensors.
You are tracking.
So, for instance you're tracking the precision, you're tracking the efficiency with a tool, whatever.
You provide that with, to Vulkan, and then Vulkan is kind of our learning management system.
So it's collecting all this data for each individual.
it help the teacher to define curriculum, and then the AI comes and can help the teacher to adapt the curriculum if needed to.
And Vulkan is also tracking and controlling the XR experience.
So it's a back and forth.
On the other way Vulkan will Send information to the XR experience.
If you're connecting on a soft solution, then the solution we ask Vulcan, Oh, Shannon, just connect.
What should I give her today to do as a task knowing the way she's learning.
And Vulcan, we say, okay.
I checked what's happened.
I checked the curriculum proposed.
So today you should do should ask her to do this exercise.
So it really turned the experience into a very individual, precise, improved.
Learning process and because it's open, anybody, not only members solution can connect to it, making it efficient for the school and on the other side, Vulcan also can connect to the elements of the school like blackboard or canvas, whatever to share the general information on the progress and evaluation of the kids.
Shannon Putman: I love that because one of the things that people are always worried about too is funding, you know, am I going to have to continue to fund this as a, you know, software for a year, whatever.
So the fact that it's open source and the other thing on the other flip side of that funding is, was this successful?
So being able to have the data and the tracking and showing progress and that it was successful to justify the spending as well.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The return investment also it's a good point.
What you mentioned, there's a lot of people that just deploy the solution for fun because it's innovation.
It's sure that you knew and all that things, but they never think about the return investment.
And there's.
Very few studies study serious study on the impact.
So I'm really advocating on that.
We really need to spend time and efforts to evaluate that.
How do we evaluate that in the best way?
Because what works at the end, and I'm talking about return on investment in terms of learning, not in terms of funding or in terms of, you know, economical return, but really learning efficiency.
Shannon Putman: Agreed.
And that's why I love getting my PhD. It was fascinating looking at the research because, you know, a lot of people, a lot of companies like to throw stats on there, like improves engagement, but, you know, and it's like, okay, like we, you know, we need some solid, you know, statistical data that's showing, you know, what it is, what does work and what doesn't work, you know, so what doesn't, then we can adjust and continue to always have the research guide our practice.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Yeah, that's I understand.
At the same time, there's not that much solution Vulcan to make some study on.
So that's why we make it open that way.
Also, we have a lot of partnership with labs and university.
We encourage any university to join us and we're providing everything for free to them just to make their study and get some real data out of that.
It can be, you know, as I said, it can be any week.
Transcribed solution connected to Vulcan.
So it doesn't mean to be a member solution.
We want everybody to join because we think there's not enough people working in this domain today.
So we encourage collaboration.
And we need the university and the lab to join us to evaluate the real efficiency of this kind of solution.
Shannon Putman: I hope that if we work together we are stronger.
I know not everybody has that same feeling, but I do.
So I appreciate that for sure.
And, you know, Memphis has been doing some great work and you guys are already in over what, 50 countries, you know, so how is it that you having, knowing that you have a vast.
range of clientele.
How do you guys, you know, kind of meet the different cultural and learner needs of all the, of all these different users?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Now, you know, that was really funny because when we released the first welding simulator in 2003, Everybody comes to the International Trade Fair.
It was in Paris, in France, the first time.
Japanese.
There was people from everywhere, and that's how we started to build up our international network.
But then comes the question off the culture because the people, for instance, Red Forest is danger.
Which is not the case in Japan.
So, you know, you need to change everything.
The colors, the or when we started to translate, it was alright.
Translating English, French Spanish, and then comes Arabic, then comes Korean.
And the signs are completely different and compute doesn't like this kind of weird signs when they're changing.
So my team fights to find spaces that fit and all that.
So technically it was already complicated and you need to think the content to be internationalized.
So easy to translate, let's say.
That's what we're doing with our reseller.
And then it's also go through.
The network of resellers.
So any country we're addressing is driven by someone local.
And it works also for the U. S. indeed.
Like there's usually someone in each state.
to understand the way it works, but it's even more important in Europe, for instance, because Hungary will not react the same way as Italy and all that things.
So we have people, usually local people that are able to understand the way people are.
The education is built up in this country.
It's also about funding, about the infrastructure to to install these kinds of things.
And the way they do the training.
So, they may be, they may have shorter learning, they may have longer time on some topics.
All that things and that's why Volcan also can adapt to these kinds of things.
You can create curriculum depending on your needs.
And each country, each reseller will help the local people to create their own curriculum, their own way of using XR, depending on the way they're learning in this country.
Shannon Putman: I don't think it can be overstated how important that is to have somebody local.
It.
It makes it authentic.
It shows that you actually do care about your user.
Cause I see it all the time, you know, hearing people love to make products for deaf people and never even ask them if they need it or want it, you know, and then it's just, it feels disingenuous.
So the fact that you get those local people and it's like, Hey, this is your learning.
We're not here to tell you how to learn.
We want to make it work for you.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: True.
True.
And usually also when something new, like we just released a warehouse operation training this month, we're sharing that first with our reseller.
To tell them, Oh, this has been done, let's say in France, for instance, will you use it in the U. S.?
Is it the same way of doing?
And if not, we're trying to adapt with them to a certain extent.
And we decide where we will deploy, but yeah, you're right.
It can be quite different like electricity, for instance, it's completely different from Asia to Europe to us.
It's all different standouts and all that thing.
So you can understand that the training may be different too.
Shannon Putman: you know, if I'm learning how to use a tool with electricity and I have the wrong settings and things, then what's the point of the learning experience?
Cause now it's incorrect information.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Correct.
Shannon Putman: seems like one of the ones I'd want to get right would be electricity for sure.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: you want to for sure.
Shannon Putman: You end up like my my mom and my dad.
I always start my podcast with yellow and it's a throwback to my dad.
So I have to make sure I hit my mom with one and give her some props.
She rewired a tool one time and the wires were touching on the inside.
And when my dad went to plug it in, he got quite the jolt.
So, we always say it kept him going, you know, kept his heart pumping.
But yeah, you want to make sure that you're careful with that.
So.
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Yeah, and it's 110 here.
So, while it's hurt, but in Europe, it's 20, it's 220 to 240 volts.
So it's stronger.
Shannon Putman: Yes, very much.
So, man, my mom's going to be so mad at that.
She'll be like, Shannon, that's the story you decided to tell about me.
Love you, mom.
But
so as we're kind of, we're getting, we're drawing towards the close, it's been so exciting.
But what's something from your end, especially with all of your history in the game and, you know, your experience in education and things like that, what advice would you give to an educator, you know, about just.
Where to get started or just about VR in general.
You know, if you could just tell them something, what is it that you want them to know?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Well, the first thing I would say is that, well, they should not be afraid.
But there's no way they will get out of that.
So they need to be prepared.
Smoothly.
So find people beside that can on board them and no reinsure them.
But it's like AI today.
You can say, I will not, I will get out of that.
I won't be affected by AI.
Everybody will be affected anywhere.
So, and it's the same for immersive learning.
Immersive learning is a new way of learning.
It will change the way the training centers are designed.
And of course it will change the way the teacher are teaching today.
So they have to go that way and they have to think about that right now with experts because if they don't do that, they will be forced to go that way and that may be painful.
So that's what I would say to them.
Shannon Putman: I adore that because I try to tell educators that look, it's here.
It's only going to get more immersive learning.
You know what you should learn it now.
You know, I say I've been saying for five years that within five to eight years, we'd have VR headsets in schools.
We had Chromebooks.
So the fact that you just said that too it really makes me excited because.
I was like, yes, somebody else feels that way too.
And I trust
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: not the only one.
I hope there's more people like us.
Shannon Putman: Right.
Exactly.
I hope people are listening to that, but, so everybody knows by now, hopefully that I love to end with kind of the closing countdown.
But before I get there, I just wanted to see if there was anything else that, you know, we hadn't really covered that you wanted to mention.
You know, I wanted to say thank you for sticking with me.
I met you a while ago and I was in the trenches of a project.
So I'm really excited to connect back with you guys.
And I love the work that Mibus does.
I love your product.
I love your guy.
I love your I like, I don't know.
I guess the kids say vibe because I always say that I partner with people who have the same beliefs as me, which is what's best for students.
And you guys have never wavered from that.
So I want to say thank you for that.
And I appreciate.
You and what you guys do.
So, is there anything else, like I said, that we didn't cover or that you wanted
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Thanks so much already, Shannon, for having me today.
And yeah, well, there's one thing maybe I would like to to push.
And maybe, I don't know if I'm affected by the atmosphere, but the actual atmosphere.
But I would say that something essential also with immersive learning is that it helps to open minds.
And you know, hide the barriers you can have.
So for inclusion of any kind, disability, gender, social inclusion, all that things, this tool is really amazing.
I've been in India, I've been in places where.
situation is really bad in Africa and other places like that.
And I saw how much these small things can really change the life of people.
And in our country, it can give, you know, people that are not prepared to that kind of work, the idea that they would be able to do it anyway.
Even if you are.
Small, tall black, white woman, man, whatever, you will be able to do it, and it's your patient.
So, that tool is amazing for that, and in those days where we're looking for people to work, we're talking about the re industrialization, we're talking about full employment, all that things and, you know, inclusion that really should be that should be a key for the future.
So, I would focus also.
Ask people and politics and all that to focus on that tool to make people work together.
Shannon Putman: that's beautiful.
I don't, I could not have said that better myself.
I love that.
Lastly, I'm gonna have obviously information with the podcast, but if anybody wanted to, besides, you know, reaching out to Putman Consulting, but if they wanted to check anything out as far as MIMBUS and Vulcan and everything, where would you suggest that they start?
Where should they go?
Dr. Laurent Da Dalto: Well, I guess the website is obviously the first place.
So www.
members.
com is the best place to find information.
And and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or on my email.
Shannon Putman: Awesome.
Thank you for that.