Dr. Randall W. Hill Jr., Vice Dean of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and Executive Director of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), recently appeared on “The Next Innovation” podcast from Situation Room Studios, powered by Enterprise Ireland, to discuss how augmented and virtual reality are revolutionizing storytelling, training, and human connection.
Hosted by longtime tech correspondent and Bloomberg reporter Samantha Murphy-Kelly, the episode explored “the next era of spatial storytelling” and featured Hill alongside other industry leaders including Michael Guerin (CEO of Imvizar), Ben Lang (co-founder of Road to VR), and Rafa Pagés (CEO of Volograms).
From Military Service to Virtual Innovation
During the conversation, Dr. Hill reflected on his unique career trajectory from U.S. Army officer to NASA researcher to his nearly 20-year tenure leading ICT. Murphy-Kelly highlighted his early mixed reality work at NASA in the 1990s and his transition to ICT around the time VR was first being deployed to address PTSD in military personnel and veterans.
“We focus on how we want to create the content for that environment – be it XR, VR, MxR – but also look at what those technologies are useful for, and how they can be used in ways that are most appealing and effective,” Dr. Hill explained.
Pioneering Immersive Training Experiences
Dr. Hill shared insights about ICT’s groundbreaking Mission Rehearsal Exercise from the early 2000s, which placed participants in complex military scenarios using an 8.5-foot-high wraparound screen spanning 30 feet with 10.2 surround sound. The system challenged participants to navigate high-pressure situations involving virtual humans they could converse with naturally.
“The participant plays the role of a young lieutenant who’s basically put in the pressure cooker,” Dr. Hill described. “We created these characters – virtual humans – that you can have a conversation with, and the participant had to reason through what to do next, how to deal with all these pressures at once.”
Current Applications and Future Vision
Dr. Hill emphasized ICT’s commitment to positive applications of immersive technology: “What we’ve really tried to do at the institute is to focus on positive uses of the technology from training applications such as how to operate a watercraft in a littoral zone, or how to team with AI agents in a scenario.”
The institute’s work spans from the BRAVEMIND VR therapy system for PTSD treatment to advanced military training simulations and Hollywood collaborations that have contributed to over 50 films and earned two Academy Awards for Science & Technology.
Addressing the Content Creation Challenge
When discussing the future of spatial storytelling, Dr. Hill identified content creation costs as a key barrier to widespread adoption. Drawing parallels to major film productions, he noted the challenge of scaling immersive content creation beyond entertainment into educational applications.
“The uses for this technology are so many of them are unexplored at this point,” Dr. Hill observed. “One barrier is our own imagination, but also the ability to create the content at scale to achieve those.”
He called for greater investment in educational applications while encouraging the training sector to leverage tools developed by the entertainment and gaming industries.
About ICT
The USC Institute for Creative Technologies operates as a Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Center, producing over 2,800 peer-reviewed publications with 150,000 citations and maintaining 278 intellectual property disclosures with 29 patents. Under Dr. Hill’s leadership, ICT continues to bridge the gap between academic research, military applications, and creative innovation.
The full episode of “The Next Innovation” from Situation Room Studios is available on podcast platforms, offering listeners an in-depth exploration of how immersive technologies are reshaping industries and human experiences. The show, powered by Enterprise Ireland, delves into potentially disruptive developments that appeal to business leaders and innovators looking beyond today’s trends to tomorrow’s transformations.