Students in American Samoa can now learn from University of Hawaii (UH) lecturers through 3D holograms beamed live into classrooms in real time at the American Samoa Community College (ASCC) HoloCampus, in a programme launched last week.

The ground-breaking new digital platform is the first of its kind in the Pacific region, running on Hawaiki transpacific submarine cable that directly connects American Samoa and Hawaii.

The technology is from a Canadian tech firm ARHT Media, and is expected to spur new thinking and approaches to education throughout the Pacific Islands region and the world.

American Samoa Governor, Lolo M. Moliga said HoloCampus is a culmination of the vision and hard work of many people inspired by the challenge of harnessing technology to provide American Samoa’s young people with access to the best opportunities for advancing their education, and creating a better future for them and their communities.

“The partnership between Hawaiki and American Samoa has delivered on its promises to bridge the digital divide in our Territory. Having ready access to high speed internet is already helping high school and college students with their learning, but the ability to have academics from around the world literally beamed into ASCC classrooms offers an exciting glimpse into what education and learning will look like in the future.”

ASCC President, Dr Rosevonne Makaiwi Pato said the technology “has the potential to completely reshape how we in American Samoa - especially our young students - interact with and share perspectives and experiences with other students, teachers and schools throughout the region and the world”.

Specific course programs to run on HoloCampus will be created by the college and UH. The courses could enable students in American Samoa to earn credits and grades towards UH degrees, with UH academics and students benefitting from greater access to the college and its teachers, learning and resources.

UH president Dr David Lassner said HoloCampus enables a remarkable new approach to distance learning.

“We expect that our work with ASCC will spark new ideas and approaches for academic collaborations across the Pacific and beyond.”

The launch of HoloCampus comes just 13 months after the Hawaiki cable went live in American Samoa, resulting in a dramatic increase in connectivity on the US territory.

Speaking at the launch in Pago Pago, Hawaiki Executive Director and COO, Ludovic Hutier emphasized the importance of international connectivity for Pacific Islands nations and territories.

Double tyranny

“For many years, the Pacific Islands have suffered from the double tyranny of distance and overpriced bandwidth but the launch of Hawaiki cable has unlocked the market by providing broadband connectivity at competitive prices to all customers. Today, we are celebrating both the first-year anniversary of Hawaiki and the launch of HoloCampus, which demonstrate our tremendous progress to date. We are honoured that ASTCA, ASCC and UH all accepted to join forces with Hawaiki and build this 3D telepresence learning platform, which will revolutionize the way we learn in the Pacific.”

“We believe connectivity is an enabler of socio-economic progress and have designed our transpacific cable to connect all Pacific Islands located next to the cable route. With branching units immediately available for New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, we have great opportunities to replicate American Samoa’s success in all these locations.”

American Samoa Telecommunications Authority (ASTCA) CEO, Lewis Wolman said since the deployment of the Hawaiki Cable last July, it has provided businesses, communities and people of American Samoa with previously undreamt of connectivity, speed and reliability.

He added that the HoloCampus is an example of the types of “applications we’re now capable of delivering, to drive improvements in everything from education, to healthcare, government services, business, and academic research collaboration”.

ARHT Media CEO, Larry O’Reilly said the company is very proud to collaborate with Hawaiki, UH, ASCC and ASTCA in helping bring forward such an innovative initiative for education in The Pacific.

“Our holographic technology is a powerful enabler for education and connecting academic institutions throughout the world, and we look forward to seeing more universities, colleges and schools taking advantage of its many benefits.”

The first lecture at the launch via hologram was from UH’s Dr Chris Shuler on water contamination and ‘turbidity’ in American Samoa, being exacerbated by rising water levels.

HoloCampus - how it works

Holograms are created using ARHT’s patented ‘capture studios’, allowing people and 3D ‘content’ to be broadcast live, virtually anywhere, in HD or 4K, on myriad devices, with virtually zero latency.

A speaker can see the room via a video signal back to the capture studio and speak to students responding to their questions and reactions in real-time.

Streaming on platforms like Facebook and YouTube is quick and easy, while broadcasts are also able to be recorded to the cloud and shared after the event.

London’s Imperial College is the world’s first academic institution to offer live holographic lectures using ARHT’s hologram technology last November.