MetLife · LumenLab Singapore · 2015–2018
conVRse
VR sales and service for life insurance
I was 23 and working in the MD's office at PNB MetLife India when I submitted conVRse to MetLife's Asia-wide Innovation Challenge. It was one of 50+ submissions from across Asia; it made the final four. Each team received $50,000 to develop their pitch.
I partnered with Ramneek Jain, head of customer success at PNB MetLife, and we found an up-and-coming VR development studio in India. Over six weeks, the three of us built a fully working prototype.
The other three finalists came with slides. I came with a working prototype.
At the finals in Singapore, we put the headset on Chris Townsend. In VR, his life grew beside him as a tree. The branches spread. Seasons passed. Then lightning struck. Fire caught. Everything went back to the roots. The message: your life can be taken from you. You need protection. And throughout, Townsend drove the journey himself. Not a passive viewer. A participant.
He took off the headset. Then he sat through three slide decks from the other finalists.
A panel of senior MetLife executives and CXOs from across Asia, chaired by Townsend, picked conVRse.
The win got me poached by MetLife's Innovation Lab in Singapore. I joined LumenLab and built it properly. conVRse launched in December 2016 with PNB MetLife India across 15 branches in 10 cities. More than 20,000 customers went through the pilot; over 90% rated it positively.
In 2017, conVRse won the Asia Insurance Industry Award for Innovation of the Year. It ran on NDTV Prime, was the subject of IDC and IIF case studies, and generated $3M in PR value across 120+ global publications.
IIF case study (Aditya mentioned by name)