Waygroup for Education Latam: Bridging Knowledge and Reality in Risk Prevention

Waygroup for Education Latam revolutionizes occupational risk training by combining immersive simulations with haptic feedback and AI. Founded by Diego Fernando Ramírez, the company has trained over 750,000 people across Latin America, offering a new approach to competency certification. After working for 10 years in occupational risk management companies, Medellín-native Diego Fernando Ramírez realized that merely training workers with good educational processes and knowledge transmission was insufficient. It was necessary for them to experience the risk firsthand through immersive universes and artificial intelligence - thus, Waygroup for Education Latam was born. This edtech company aims to transform the technological experience accumulated over the years into a new chapter of international expansion: bringing its model of immersive education, training, and certification of labor competencies to one million Latin Americans. The success is already tangible. The company has trained over 750,000 people and worked with approximately 700 institutions across Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Spain. Now, it seeks to leverage the technology it has built to scale its operation and expand its presence into other regional markets. This initiative stems from a corporate transformation that began far from simulators and virtual reality. The company has developed projects worth nearly $40 billion over the last two years. In Mexico alone, sales reach close to US$1.5 million, while in other countries where it is entering, it has added about US$1 million over the past three years. Waygroup originated from Ramírez's professional experience as a manager for nearly a decade at one of the country's most prominent occupational risk administrators. This background allowed him to directly observe company operations, worker exposure to risks, and the difficulties in preparing people to face them. Initially, the business centered on consultancy and risk prevention. However, the focus shifted when the company discovered that transferring knowledge doesn't necessarily mean a person can physically execute a task correctly. 'We came to understand that having good processes and transmitting knowledge were not enough. We had to change the way we teach and train,' Ramírez recounted. The company then began developing a proposal centered on bringing knowledge into practice through experiences that enable training, measurement, and demonstration of acquired skills. This evolution transformed Waygroup from a risk prevention firm into a broad ecosystem of education and training that intervenes in various stages of the educational process. Today, its proposal encompasses schools, universities, vocational training, businesses, and evaluation/accreditation of labor competencies. The evolution was also accompanied by a name change. The company rebranded as Waygroup for Education Latam and started expanding its model into markets such as Mexico, Chile, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, and the United States. 'Today, we combine immersive education, simulation, haptic technologies, artificial intelligence, and evidence-based evaluation,' Ramírez notes. The goal, he summarizes, is for a person not only to have knowledge but to be able to demonstrate its practical application. Haptic technology allows users to not only observe what happens in a simulation but also feel physical stimuli like vibrations, weight, or resistance. This aims to bridge the gap between digital interaction and real-world conditions. The company complements this with telemetry systems that automatically record movements and performance. The model sets a 90% approval threshold, ensuring that certification is not subjective but based on actual execution data. 'The differential factor of this ecosystem is not replacing institutional infrastructure but acting as a technological integration layer that increases operational capacity,' said Ramírez. According to him, integrating physical stimuli can also accelerate the learning process, reducing training times significantly compared to conventional digital models