Read the interview with George Raptis and his winning proposal: Therapy-based Reduction of Uncomfortable Experiences Safely in Extended Reality Spaces (TRUST-XR)
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George Raptis and Human Opsis

George Raptis is the Director of Human Opsis, an SME who leads the TRUST-XR project. Human Opsis brings expertise in XR, user-centred design, and technological integration. The company is responsible for designing immersive environments, integrating SPIRIT’s telepresence infrastructure, and ensuring technical performance, usability, and scalability. Paremvasis, SME, complements this with psychology and therapeutic interventions. It designs therapeutic scenarios grounded in cognitive-behavioural therapy, such as anxiety reduction and emotional well-being scenarios. Together, the two SMEs merge technology and therapy to create innovative, personalised XR applications that offer measurable mental health benefits while strengthening their market competitiveness in the XR and therapeutic domains​.

Can you give a brief overview of your winning proposal?
What are its key objectives and innovative aspects?

Our TRUST-XR proposal aims to deliver immersive, adaptive XR scenarios for therapeutic use. It empowers individuals to safely confront fears, such as claustrophobia or social anxiety, through controlled XR environments, guided in real-time by therapists using holographic telepresence. TRUST-XR integrates cutting-edge personalisation and cognitive-behavioural therapy principles into SPIRIT’s low-latency infrastructure. Innovations include real-time context and environment adaptation based on user responses, therapist holograms for emotional support, and performance metrics to track therapeutic outcomes. Through these capabilities, the project validates SPIRIT’s potential to support impactful, multi-user, multi-modal, and real-time XR applications while addressing critical societal mental health needs​.

What motivated you to apply for the SPIRIT Open Call?

We saw SPIRIT Open Call 2 as a fantastic opportunity to bring our therapeutic XR vision to life using a robust and interconnected European infrastructure. SPIRIT’s low-latency testbeds, telepresence tools, and emphasis on real-time, scalable applications aligned perfectly with our goals to deliver adaptive, personalised, and collaborative XR therapy. As an SME specialising in immersive technologies, we were also motivated by SPIRIT’s support framework for third-party experimentation, which enables the validation of innovative solutions in real-world scenarios. This collaboration allowed us to bridge the gap between mental health needs and technical possibilities, thus contributing to SPIRIT’s objectives and the future of digital therapy and inclusion​.

How do you envision this project making an impact?

We envision that TRUST-XR will impact technological, societal, and scientific aspects. From a technological perspective, TRUST-XR pushes the boundaries of adaptive XR by validating SPIRIT’s ability to support personalised, multi-user therapy environments. Societally, it addresses mental health by enabling safe, accessible exposure therapy for people who struggle with fears or anxieties. Our real-world scenarios help users confront these challenges in a controlled virtual space guided by therapists via real-time holographic communication. Scientifically, TRUST-XR generates valuable data on therapeutic outcomes and user engagement, contributing to psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI) research, and immersive health tech. It also enhances the SPIRIT ecosystem by showcasing reusable modules and encouraging other SMEs and researchers to adopt SPIRIT’s infrastructure​.