With an entrepreneurial drive, CEO of Learn2, Doug Bolger found his passion for Learn2 by doing small jobs for his university professors to help with class engagement through teambuilding. Learn2 was founded as a leadership development and team-building experiences company with distinctive and engaging programs that achieve lasting behaviour and change. Inspired by the lack of inspiration that comes from long lectures and seminars, Learn2 was born out of a need for a more involved and exciting way to motivate teams to work together and become more intuitive and successful. By Bolger’s graduation, Learn2 had offers from some of Canada’s most renowned businesses to get involved in the unique and innovative team-building world that he was creating. Launching 32 years ago, Learn2 has since evolved into an international success story of human performance and engaged learning, and has now reinvented its own wheel by moving entirely online.
As with most tech innovation stories emerging in 2021, Learn2’s transition to fully remote programming was essential amidst the global Covid-19 pandemic. Teams still had to work together to keep their businesses running, now with even more challenges to face when it came to connection and team building. Interpersonal connections fell short from home offices with inevitable pet cameos and endless interruptions from home life. Out of convenient happenstance, Bolger had already been working on Learn2’s remote and hybrid programming, recalling “We were already in the technology space, using tablets and OCR to standardize the coaching experience, and when the pandemic hit, I was already considering how to go fully remote”. Their 3-year plan to move online was executed in 6 short months due to the quick adoption of remote and online work and play.
In a speedy effort to move to fully remote programming, Learn2 partnered with London-based company, Mikutech, to create a platform that was custom built for Learn2’s unique experiences. In their search for the right platform to host their immersive adventures, Bolger states, “We found some constraints in other video communications platforms, so we’ve built our own environment for groups to work together through the experiences and create a deeper level of immersion”. This collaboration allows for Learn2’s team-building programs like Save the Titanic, an award-winning immersive challenge where teams are set in 1912 and tasked to save the Titanic from sinking to still function as a useful and exciting way to build teamwork, leadership, and overall success.
This partnership with Mikutech is an exciting advance in the video communications technology space. “With a referral to Mikutech from my founders network, we worked hard with them to create an immersive experience platform”, says Bolger. This means that Learn2 has set precedent for video communication and immersive experience platforms to have options and solutions for all types of work and play, making our digital and remote communities more personalized and engaging.
What started as a solution for Learn2’s online survival of their popular Save the Titanic program became something that everybody will soon get to enjoy. This exciting, new, and immersive program allows for more freedom and creativity in learning and team-building modules. With a world-renowned and award-winning team-building experience being the catalyst for a video communication platform like this one, Learn2 has just begun its online and remote training journey. Moving out of the instantaneously digital work landscape that was 2020, Learn2 will continue to create programs that can be completed in person or fully online with the possibility of hybrid programs in the future. With their return to live programs and experiences expected in early fall, the opportunity for adventures that teams can enjoy, reflect, and learn from is endless.
Learn more about Learn2’s programs and experiences here, and keep following their journey to be updated on their new innovative learning programs.