Dave Clark was sitting in prison serving a 40-year sentence for a Ponzi scheme conviction when he got to thinking about his fellow cons and their struggles.
High illiteracy rates and poor job prospects on the outside, and education and training programs that just didn't connect.
His answer: Virtual reality headsets to teach the inmates. They can learn lessons and get virtual hands-on experience at their own pace, and without the pressures of a group classroom setting.
Now on the outside, Clark and his partners at Promising People, a Florida-based nonprofit, say they can shorten training times, boost information retention and churn out skilled workers for anyone -- including those behind bars.
"Here's the big deal with the headset. Eighty percent retention rates go up right when you learn something on the headset, versus learning it by analog," said John Evans Jr., a Florida businessman and Clark's partner.
Mr. Evans noted the 60% illiteracy rate in U.S. prisons and that another 60% who are released from prison one year later do not have a gainful job.
"This is just morally reprehensible. "We're going to teach them how to read with phonics for adults, then we're going to get them a fully accredited high school diploma, which has a 95% success rate," he said.
Promising people is run by Mr. Evans and Clark, whose federal sentence President Trump commuted in 2021 after 6 years in prison, though he was still to serve five years of supervised release.
After Promising People incorporated in 2019, Mr. Evans said he began talking with CEOs to match their job needs with the types of training programs he could offer. The overwhelming answer was electrical helpers, who assist electricians. They can earn $18 to $20 an hour.
Promising People came up with a virtual reality class that can do the training in as little as 15 days. Students practice measuring and hammering, all in a digital space.
"We go from 10 months to 15 days with our electrical helper [course] because we're removing distractions. When you learn, the acetylcholine receptor sites in the brain are activating," Mr. Evans said.
The program expanded its menu of coursework to offer other trades and basic skills to help former inmates learn a variety of construction trades, science and medical career coursework, culinary courses, criminal justice courses, personal finance and financial literacy instruction, technology schooling and early childhood education.
Additionally, the program offers basic education courses for adults seeking reading and math literacy as well as English as a Second Language instruction.
The big breakthrough, Mr. Evans said, was figuring out how to reach adult students -- and particularly those in prisons and jails.
He said group settings are troubling for adults, who become hindered by shame at not knowing something or not picking up skills at the pace others set. The headsets remove that issue.
"This is your campus now. And you can see the shame go away, and they're learning asynchronously, at their own pace," Mr. Evans said. "They might be inside the walls, or they might be on parole or supervised release, but we're going to get to them."
Promising People says its virtual reality training is available beyond those in the criminal justice system and is used by vocational training centers, too.
Mr. Evans recalled one former student, a convict who had been in and out of jail for seven years, who used the VR headset to earn his certification to become an electrical helper while finishing up his sentence in Cibola County, New Mexico.
"We got in, we did the training, and he was due to leave. His term was up, and he said, 'I ain't leaving until I have my certificate because I don't know an honest way to make a dollar.'"
Mr. Evans said, "So we appealed to the judge and to the warden, and he stayed in prison for three more weeks to get his certificate, and now he has a job as an electrical helper in New Mexico."