Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc. is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of welding equipment, with more than 42 manufacturing locations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, and its business depends on making sure there are enough certified welders to use their equipment.

For that reason, he felt he needed a school to train workers, but traditional training was slow, expensive, and cumbersome. He then turned to technologies more associated with consumer games: virtual reality and the metaverse.

Now, students put on virtual reality headsets to perform virtual welds and receive immediate feedback in an immersive environment on how straight pipe or sheet metal welds are. If they mess up, they can just reset the virtual system instantly and keep improving, and…