Elise Smith
Using virtual reality to make workplace equity and inclusion a reality.
As the co-founder and CEO of Praxis Labs, Elise Smith is on a mission to use virtual reality and actionable insights to make workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
Praxis Labs’ evidence-based VR “learning journeys” give employees the opportunity to take on new perspectives, and experience incidents of bias or discrimination in the workplace from multiple perspectives, including that of employees who are encountering the barrier to equity, as well as employees who are bystanders or complicit in the incident. In VR, learners practice responding to the incidents in the moment. Then, the learning platform lets users reflect on the incidents they experienced, the decisions they made, and how they would respond in real life. Learners are then asked to reflect on their own workplace and to give feedback on how their workplace could be more equitable and inclusive.
Praxis Labs’ clients can see employee feedback at the aggregate level, and intervention recommendations on an administrative-insights dashboard. By providing clients with actionable insights, Smith and Praxis Labs have helped companies—including Google, Target, Etsy, and Uber—to build more empathetic leaders and inclusive teams, and to take action to increase equity and inclusion in the workplace.
“Our goal is to ensure that everyone—regardless of their background or intersectional identity—can thrive in the workplace and the other places they frequent every day,” Smith says.
A virtual-reality entrepreneur explains how VR can help organizations create more diverse and inclusive workplaces.