FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Fayetteville NC - May 29th 2008.  Fayetteville Technical Community College, the BRAC Regional Task Force and Navigator Development Group Inc announced the grand opening of its Advanced Visualization and Interactive Design Center.  Housed in the Harry F. Shaw Virtual College Center building, FTCC is partnering with other centers globally to implement a series of advanced visualization labs.  Each lab at FTCC has a role to play in advanced distance learning, knowledge transfer and simulation based learning.  The center has six (6) labs each with a mission to improve how we communicate.

“We have focused on re-purposing the most advanced visual technologies today into usable tools for education and training in the global community,” said Bob Ervin FTCC’s Vice President of Learning Technologies, “each lab has a mission statement mixed in with a little vision.”

The Tele-presence Lab, a next generation Video Teleconferencing room, was designed to be an innovation hub for e-synchronous and advanced distance learning and human interaction.  Its eye-to-eye contact technology allows for a more cognitive and effective collaborative communication experience while reducing costs associated with travel and distance.  FTCC’s Immersive Learning Lab, a 3D surround experience, provides a CAVE environment in order to create a realistic learning-by-doing experience. 

What is especially exciting for local students is the center’s new Experience & Discovery Lab where visitors enjoy exciting and innovative method of merging education and entertainment technologies to create “Edu-tainment.”  The school has also transformed traditional classrooms into Visual Learning Labs where a 3D Stereoscopic delivery creates a stimulating learning environment so that students and faculty can virtually and visually communicate their ideas and discoveries.  In the Virtual College Center’s Development Lab, programmers build virtual reality and 3D content to support advanced distance and simulation based initiatives for research and development projects and economic development.

Even watching TV will change as FTCC’s Broadcast and Studio Lab provides Digital and 3D media that creates a 3 dimensional TV viewing experience without the need for glasses.  In this lab, students and faculty learn how to integrate new virtual technologies with traditional and emerging broadcast technologies.  FTCC President Dr. Larry Keen, said the new center is a timely addition for the region.  “The global market is adopting visualization as a more effective means for communication and the cost of fuel is demanding a more collaborative method for communication without travel.  At FTCC we are training future professionals to help industry be more competitive.”

With most American’s just back from a Memorial Day weekend, the additional vision of the center to retrain returning soldiers that are disabled and putting them back in the workforce has an increased sense of urgency.  “We are proud of FTCC in a joint commitment to place disabled veterans, veterans and their spouses in the next generation of high paying jobs,” said Albert L Patterson III, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder of Navigator Development Group Inc, a service disabled veteran owned business.

The grand opening is scheduled to begin at 2 PM, June 3rd at the Neil Currie building where local and international dignitaries from industry, public office and the Department of Defense are expected to attend and deliver dedication comments.