UT-Austin Rolls Out Holographic Professors Amid Coronavirus

AUSTIN, TX — Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the virtual classroom is a brave new world. Extending the new reality further, the business school at the University of Texas at Austin is poised to beam holographic professors at students to further ensure physical distancing safeguards.

The McCombs School of Business has contracted with locally based Contextual Concept Group to create a new 3D immersive video that combines in-person, hybrid and online teaching to deliver an interactive distance learning experience, officials said in an emailed advisory.

“We knew we could make the digital experience better,” Joe Stephens, senior assistant dean and director of working professional and executive MBA programs, said in a prepared statement. “Enterprise, tenacity, curiosity and authenticity are the pillars of what we do at McCombs, and we’re doing all those things right now. We teach our students to innovate, and we’re practicing what we preach. That’s what innovation and the world of business is all about.”

Hologram versions of professors, of course, can't exhale air droplets or get infected. University officials said the faculty member is streamed live as a high-resolution, full-body holographic image, reaching students both in a physically distanced classroom and off campus on Zoom. Known as Recourse, school officials added, the technology allows the professor to interact with both the physical classroom and the virtual classroom in real time.

Yet this is no ghostly presence with preprogrammed answers to students' questions. Rather, university officials said, students can ask questions and engage with the professor. That's because the professor is set up in a television studio in front of a green screen with high-end cameras, lights, monitors and a control room space.

Watch hologram technology in action at the McCombs School of Business.

The Recourse platform is being used in accounting professor Steve Limberg’s Executive MBA class, officials said. Limberg is one of the first McCombs School faculty members to adopt the technology.

“This is an authentic experience because I can see all the gestures and the nuances that students are expressing, whether it be raising a hand or nodding, and as a result, it really is very much like being right here in the classroom,” Limberg said in a prepared statement.

The technology's use was spurred by the coronavirus as school officials contemplated methods to teach students amid calls for distancing as a way to blunt the spread of illness. As the fall 2020 semester loomed, university officials said they reached out to the Austin startup firm to "to invent a new way of activating multiple modalities simultaneously, keeping both the professor and students safe."

It's not a one-off either. University officials lauded its fit within the innovative culture at the McCombs School of Business, noting there are plans to expand the technology.

“This technology is very robust,” said Jim Spencer, CEO of Contextual Concept Group. “Our goal is to keep the professors safe, greatly enhance the in-classroom socially distanced experience, and also greatly enhance the online virtual experience, and I’m happy to report it works.”

While not mentioned by university officials, students will save on apples as an added benefit. Holograms don't eat fruits (or any other food for that matter), rendering the traditional token of ingratiation moot. Of course, hologram versions of apples might be around the corner because, in 2020, one never knows what's next.