NICLR WIN MAJOR INDUSTRY ACCOLADE

THE Northern Ireland Centre for Learning Resources (NICLR) have won a top award for their ‘Virtual Reality Assistant’ application at the Europrix Awards in Sweden.
The application, which is used on a daily basis by the ongoing Bloody Sunday Inquiry at the Guildhall in Derry, picked up the award in the ‘Empowering Citizens and Improving Democracy With Multimedia’ category.
Europrix the ‘Oscars of Multimedia’ are the Europe-wide contest for best practice in, multimedia products and application. The award ceremony was held at the Internet Bay Conference and was also the venue for the meeting of EU Ministers for Technology and Employment. A panel of 25 independent international judges judged the awards, which attracted entries from more than 500 companies in over 30 European countries. NICLR was the only UK entrant to receive a nomination and a place in the finals.
Derek Kinnen, Director of NICLR, said: “This is a most significant achievement for a small organisation and is without doubt the most prestigious of all the awards we have won over the last decade. Our success has made a considerable impression not just in Europe but around the world and it has allowed us to present not only ourselves but also Northern Ireland as a high technology country, capable of playing a major role in these new emergent technology based economies.”
The system uses the metaphor of ‘stepping stones’ enabling anyone to use their fingers on the touch screen and literally walk around the areas of the Bogside. To provide alternative ways of seeing the environment, the users can flick between the scenes showing, as it is today, an artist’s representation and the computer model.
It is the first time that Virtual Reality has been used in a courtroom to allow witnesses to present their version of events more clearly. (CMcL)