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Chris Mcleod, a Senior Solutions Architect with NVIDIA, gives us his exclusive take on the skills needed for the virtual worlds of the very near future.

Have you ever hung out with your friends in Fortnite or Roblox, or created a virtual world in Minecraft? Maybe you have played with an augmented reality (AR) app on your phone or put on a virtual reality (VR) headset and danced in Beat Saber? Did you know that all of these activities are building skillsets that will be important to almost every industry in the world? Interested to know more? Then read on and I will explain a little about what I do and why building and navigating virtual worlds could be a vital part of your career in future.

Image of Fortnite

What I do

I work as a Solutions Architect at NVIDIA, which you might know as the company that builds graphics cards (GPUs) that make games look beautiful. You may not know NVIDIA also works in many other areas like artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and robotics. We help scientists, researchers, developers and creators do amazing things. My job is to understand the latest developments and technologies in the area I specialise in, which is professional visualisation. Then communicate those to our customers in a way that resonates with them, explaining why adopting that technology could benefit their organisation.

In other words, I get to learn and play with the latest technology then talk to people about it and how it can help them. My customers build, design and simulate everything you can possibly imagine; it all exists on a computer in a 3D application before its ever made. Everything from the latest special effects in a Hollywood movie or TV show, to your house and pretty much everything in it. The screen you’re reading this article on was designed in 3D software and so was the chair you are sitting on. 

“If you are used to socialising in games with your friends or enjoy using AR/VR, you already have some great skills for understanding and navigating virtual environments…”

I’m not an engineer or developer and not a salesperson or account manager, I sit somewhere in between. This type of job is often called ‘Pre-sales’ or ‘Technology Consultant’ or in my case ‘Solutions Architect’. To be successful in this type of role you need to enjoy technology, learning, problem solving and communication. One day I could be speaking at a technology conference or delivering a training session, the next I could be helping understand and resolve a problem with streaming VR over a network. The job has lots of variety and there is always something new to learn.

How I got here

My first PC was an Amstrad CPC 464 which loaded games up on a tape(!) and I’ve been interested in computers ever since. When I was at school I never thought that working with computers could lead to a job. At the time ‘IT’ seemed to be about spreadsheets and word documents, applications which are important but did not sound very exciting to me. 

Leaving school without knowing what I wanted to do and without any Highers, I signed up to a local college to study electronics, still not really having a real career plan. After college I went onto study Computer Engineering at Caledonian University in Glasgow and loved it, and there I started to understand the huge number of technology jobs out there, and those opportunities are just getting bigger and better! 

VR & Car

Virtual worlds 

Digital skills are fundamental to nearly everything going on in the world, both today and even more so in the future. 
Let’s take a car manufacturer for example. They already use VR as part of their design process and have done for a number of years. Their engineers jump into VR with a headset or AR on a tablet and walk round a virtual car in photoreal detail, looking at materials and making design decisions. 

"You could be one of the millions of digital artists, content creators or engineers helping to build that virtual world."

This idea of working in ‘virtual worlds’ will soon be as normal as visiting a website: we will all being doing it. It will be as important for social interactions as it will be for work.  I’m sure you’ve heard talk of  the ‘Metaverse’. This is no longer some far off futuristic idea. All of those objects, assets and scenes that already exist in 3D software applications today will become the building blocks of the Metaverse. 

We will build virtual worlds which you will be able to portal into from any device.  You could be one of the millions of digital artists, content creators or engineers helping to build that virtual world. If you are used to socialising in games with your friends or enjoy using AR/VR, you already have some great skills for understanding and navigating virtual environments, skills very much in demand even now. 

Special effects

Artificial intelligence 

Virtual worlds will also be essential for the next era of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is another exciting technology you could go on to work with. AI also sounds like futuristic idea, but if you’ve had a film recommended to you on Netflix, or Amazon has suggested a product for you when you are shopping online, you’ve used AI. It’s already part of our daily lives. Soon advanced AIs will drive our cars for us, be your personal digital avatar assistant at home, help to design buildings, create smart cities and solve environmental problems, take your order at restaurants, control intelligent machines, even accelerate healthcare research and help cure disease. But AI has to be created by humans with the right skills first! 

If you are thinking about a career in tech, go for it! It can be fun and extremely rewarding.  For those who enjoy programming or want to become a developer there so many opportunities. You might want to study Phyton or USD if you are interested in the Metaverse or AI. 

For everyone else who’s not a developer there are hundreds of other roles that don’t require programming skills – like my job which is helping customers adopt technology. There are roles in almost every industry that need digital skills: healthcare, energy, engineering, finance, manufacturing, games and movies.  

Find something you enjoy doing, and get paid for it!