The Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) in the College of Engineering at the University of Canterbury (UC) has just received word of its success in a bid to add significantly to its research capacity through the NZ Ministry of Education’s Entrepreneurial Universities programme, coordinated by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). The research effort, entitled the Applied Immersive Gaming Initiative (AIGI), uses the motivation that games provide to engage people in tasks such as learning subjects at school, training for trades, carrying out health and safety activities, exercising or curbing addictive behaviors. It blends technological approaches such as virtual and augmented reality with social and artistic aspects to generate new applications that will help stimulate NZ’s creative industries.

The award will allow three senior international academic staff members to join the Lab, and to support ongoing efforts in the UC School of Product Design (SoPD). All three have significant experience launching and running applied, entrepreneurial research efforts at their respective current institutions. The wife and husband team of Dr Heide Lukosch and Dr Stephan Lukosch, both from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, will join forces with Prof Andrew Phelps from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in the US to launch this groundbreaking initiative at UC. Rounding out the team will be existing UC staff members Prof Rob Lindeman, Director of the HIT Lab NZ, and Dr Simon Hoermann and Dr Thammathip Piumsomboon, both Lecturers in SoPD.

The key to our courses and projects are a multidisciplinary focus, collaboration with external companies and teamwork. You may have a Bachelor's degree in computer science, design, or psychology and want to expand your expertise into the prototyping domain or vise versa. We encourage students from diverse backgrounds to join the laboratory. Students with expertise in philosophy, economics or sociology are as welcome as students with an engineering degree. It is the mix of backgrounds that makes our educational programs so special.