How MacTay is using virtual reality to train emergency services professionals in Lagos
MacTay is using VR to train over 300 Lagos ambulance workers, simulating real-life emergencies to build muscle memory. As it expands into education, the company is betting on immersive tech to scale training and improve outcomes.
Over 300 emergency service professionals in Lagos have now been trained using virtual reality (VR) goggles. Inside the simulation, they are placed on the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge, responding to a life-threatening accident and applying in real time what they would typically learn only in a classroom.
For Tunde Rotimi, who leads Strategy and Innovation at MacTay, the value is repetition without risk.
“It is very challenging to duplicate a high-risk environment,” he says, pointing to how impractical and commercially unviable it would be to recreate real emergencies like fires or major accidents for training. Instead, MacTay builds them virtually.
“We modelled the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge and trained over 300 people there. You can’t have more than seven participants on that bridge at once; imagine training everyone there.”
The result is a training environment that feels close to reality but is far more scalable. Developed under MacTay’s Better Lagos Initiative, an effort focused on low-cost, high-impact, technology-driven solutions, the VR programme allows responders to practise repeatedly without the logistical and safety constraints of physical simulations.
That shift reflects a broader transformation inside MacTay itself. Founded over four decades ago as an HR consulting firm, the company is now repositioning as a technology-driven organisation.
“We are transitioning from an HR company that wants to deploy technology solutions to stay with the trend, to a technology company deploying HR solutions,” Rotimi explains.
At the centre of that shift is its growing focus on AI, particularly what it calls “precision AI solutions” designed to augment workers or automate specific workflows without replacing people entirely.
This push into technology is not just about commercial opportunity. MacTay is also working closely with the Lagos State government to deploy solutions across public sector systems, including healthcare.
Victoria Fakiya – Senior Writer
Techpoint Digest
