 This session we are happy to introduce a terrific session called Virtual Developers and our speaker today is Rachel Umaren. Rachel is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. Welcome all and let's begin our session. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction and thank you everyone for being here. Today I'm going to I think emphasize the point that grant writing is tough. Something you already knew. But I believe that we will go through a few tips. We generate some creative juices and think about the sequence in which grant writing occurs and things that will make a grant most likely to be successful. So we only have about 20 to 23 minutes. So I will go relatively fast. But if you have any questions as I go along, feel free to put them in the chat and I will try to answer all of them either by voice after this session or in text if we go a little bit long. So anyone who's tried getting someone to give you money will tell you that grant writing is tough. But at the University of Washington, our NEST lab has been fairly successful in getting grant funding from various sources of funders as well as doing a lot of publishing and presenting mostly around simulation and virtual reality. So these are the source current sources of our funding. We have a large grant from the Gates Foundation and we have a part of the Microsoft mixed reality academic seating program. We have a simulacademic software institution grant that's for discrete events simulation. We got some National Science Foundation funding to do some exploratory work around a virtual patient simulator. And we have some local funding through our institutional center for leadership and innovation medical education as well as our hospitals, academic enrichment fund and our divisions by a research fund. So these grants all total around a million dollars a little bit more than that actually maybe closer to two. So today we're going to identify potential grant opportunities for virtual developers with some apologies to folks who might not be focusing on education. I'm going to say that I am more in the education world and so a lot of what I say will be more targeted towards educators. I think that if you're not an educator, then you can still benefit from this because education grants are actually harder to get than non education grants. And then we'll talk briefly in just in terms of the principles of successful grant writing and I will not go into a lot of detail on this but hopefully it'll be just enough to wet your interest in learning a little bit more. So first question is, what are you doing and is it fundable? Well, we do a lot of different things. So we do individual training as educators. Sometimes it's in technical skills. Sometimes it's in non technical skills like communication and teamwork, customer service and I think those kinds of things. Discrete event simulations and disaster and safety and traffic movements and things like that. Providing a service of some sort, hosting a remote meeting like we're doing here. There are actually conference grants that you can go for. Distance learning is something that an institution would support or classes that are in, you know, not on campus. And so I just put your project there. And so if you have a project that, you know, you want us to talk about or, you know, you have an idea that you're thinking about getting funding for, you know, think of the session as a resource and put your general idea out and maybe somebody in the audience or maybe I will be able to think about a potential source of funding for you. So just as an example of one of our more technical skilled focused projects, this is a project that we have funded by the Gates Foundation. It's a mobile virtual reality software to teach neonatal resuscitation to healthcare providers in low resource settings. So that is the example of a technical skill focused project. And you might think, well, you know, don't I have to have like something to hold and maybe the ambo bag and a mannequin I can touch. And the answer is we don't think so. Now we are actively studying this. And so we will be doing a pilot study in Nigeria and Kenya over the next six months and we'll get back to you on how effective it was. But, you know, there's a funder out there that is willing to pay us to do this. So another example is non technical skills training. And my slides have not yet advanced to that point. But there we go. But an example of that is our prenatal counseling simulator so customizable virtual patient. We actually started this concept and opens in with the bots that you may have all seen and probably have a number of them. And, you know, looked at how can we get students, learners to interact? You know, what are the key points that we're going to get them to, you know, hit on identify in order to learn some of these key skills. So another example, difficult conversations. And this highlights, of course, as we are here, you know, that you can have funding to do virtual office or virtual conference room. You know, and again, the goal being to sell your idea as something that would be valuable to the institution or valuable to the organization that you are working with or talking to. So talking about how to get there. And I'm going to, you know, talk about how I got there. And, you know, you all can share your experiences as well. But we started with prototyping an open sim. And so, you know, briefly pros and cons is you might know, you know, pros, obviously really flexible, changing in real time. You can really represent anything that you want. And you can get people in there from, you know, different parts of the country or even different around the world. You know, some of the cons related to just the stability and the technology and, you know, how over time things have, you know, evolved. You know, I believe so many of those issues are resolved slash resolving. And so open sim still remains one of our best low cost options to prototype. Another option that we've also explored is prototyping e-learning software. So this is articulate. It's a software that can be used to in a lot of different ways. I think people think of it as, oh, you know, this is just a software that can be used to deliver PowerPoint talk. Well, not really. You can actually make a game in an e-learning software and prototype your idea. And the reason why I keep talking about prototyping is because for someone to fund you to do something, they sort of have to have an idea that you know how to do it or that you are halfway there. Nobody is really going to, you know, just kind of take your word for it. And I'm sorry if this is news to you or something you're not known. But, you know, it's just the fact that anyone who wants to invest in you, it needs to know that they're going to get a return on your investment. So a proof of concept is really important. Another way to prototype is to use a 360 degree camera to capture images that you can then build a little bit of interactivity into. This is very quick because you don't need to model everything. Now you may not have everything that you need with this and you may not be able to move around the room or do the things that you would typically do or be interactive, but you can prototype very quickly with a 360 image. And it translates very well into the head mounted display. So this is another example of kind of a real world application of VR, where we're talking about live streaming VR through 360 cameras, potentially for use for tele simulation or for even telemedicine. So let's talk about what you might be doing now. So you might be starting with a goal, meaning I have this project idea. I have this thing I want to do and then thinking about, well, how do I do it and selecting your technology and then starting to look for a funder to fund your idea? Well, that is one way to go about it, but I'm going to suggest that this approach may be more successful. Start with a funder. So find someone that has some area of interest that overlaps with yours. So see if you can arrive at some kind of mutual goal and then decide, okay, how are we going to accomplish this and select your technology then? Because as we've talked about in this conference, the world of virtual is expanding and so you have all sorts of different tools at your disposal, OpenCensus One, Unity, you have AR. There are lots of different options and to the funder, it's all the same to them. They don't care if it's this or that or the other. They probably don't even know what Unreal Engine is or what OpenCensus or even what Second Life is. But so long as they know that what you're trying to accomplish and that they're interested in, they will go along with you with whatever technology you say you want to use. So finding funding from resources or organizations is actually not that hard. So start out by thinking about, okay, what area am I working in? Look for your association. So I put up a few examples here. National Science Teachers Association. Go to their website. Or for me, I would look at the American Academy of Pediatrics. What kind of grants are they offering? Look at government agencies. NSF offers these small grants. NIH offers grants. Small business grants all up the wazoo and all kinds of different government agencies. And so if you're a virtual developer, you're probably going to go after a small business grant. If you're an academician, you're probably going to be going after one of the more traditional government agencies, NIH, NSF, and so on. And if you haven't done a whole lot of previous research or publications or presentations, then you're going to be looking at foundations. Because if they find that you have an idea or you have a solution to something that they feel is within their portfolio to fund, they are looking for you. And they don't really care if you have published a lot or if you are at an academic institution or not. Many of them will give small grants to small businesses or to not always to individuals, but sometimes to individuals or to other smaller organizations. So if you have a nonprofit, you could get a grant from a large foundation. Or if you're working in a hospital, but not necessarily associated with or in a school, not necessarily associated with a larger institution, that may be the way to go. Another option is ask your librarian. So, and I hope, you know, I got the talent of the last presentation, which is really interesting. And I wonder if there are resources in our virtual libraries on grant writing. But if you go to your physical library or online and ask your librarian for resources, then you are likely to get a long list of potential resources and they can tailor it to your particular project. The other option is to look online. So it utopia grant wrangler and friendship. These are all sites that have, you know, a variety of different resources that are related to grant writing. Some of them even offer grant writing classes. So next steps. You've identified your potential funder. You've looked at what they funded in the past. Maybe even talked to one of their program officers. Program officers are not scary people. We should talk to them. You know, talk to the person who is on that page, you know, as a contact person say, hey, I have this idea. Do you think you could fund this? And they will tell you yes or no. And then you can, if the answer is no, you can move on. If the answer is yes, then you need to follow up and try to figure out where the best areas of overlap are. Settle on a technology, as I said, and then do your prototyping. Now, you can prototype within that technology, but if it's really expensive, then maybe you prototype in a less expensive platform and get a little bit of user data. Just kind of see whether your idea is actually going to be feasible and work the way you intend it to work. And then, you know, you can present that to your funder. Publish and present. If you're going down the academic route and you're going to need, you know, this track record, then by all means, you know, you're not going to get funded unless you have publications in that area. And then you get your grant. So, you know, the question is, is this kind of backwards? Yes, it is. But you sort of have to prime the pump. So once you get through this first phase with your first grant, you can go on to more and larger projects. But if you're starting in a new area or you're starting, you know, with your first grant, then you do have to kind of go through this phase. So a lot of people get stopped because they have their goal and they have their technology and they're going around looking for a funder. And, you know, for the most part, you know, unless you have gone through this phase so that you know that your funder matches and you can come to mutual goal, then you're likely to just kind of stop there. A lot of people try to write a grant and, you know, send it around to different funders. And that may work, but a funder can generally tell that that grant wasn't really initially written towards them. If you just change a few things may not, they may not fund it. So internal funds from your institution are easier to get if you need funding. But I would say overall, you know, don't go it alone. If you can get people around you, you know, help you out in one way or the other, particularly if you're, you know, small business ideas or if you're doing academics. I mean, even if you're just doing your thing, if you can work together and I think that's where VR virtual worlds have been really, really wonderful. At least I found them so fabulous, especially early on. And I know many of us are still kind of experiencing that quote unquote isolation at our various institutions. You know, just find fellowship, so to speak, find a group, find people to work with and collaborate, you know, especially in the educational world. If you can say that you're doing this at multiple institutions, even if it's one class at each institution, it still carries more weight than you just doing your one project at your institution. So I think with that, I'm going to say I'm going to stop and take questions and want to share experiences or sob stories or whatever. Now's a good time. Okay, thanks. Do we have any questions from the audience? If you could type them into local chat. Great presentation, by the way, it's one I've thought that we long needed to hear about more. And I put a few notes in there from some things that I picked up from my grant writing as well. One of the big things I noticed is that the imagery makes a big difference. It really helps to have some pictures of what your vision is. Yes, that's definitely true. I mean, even if you haven't accomplished it yet, people need to understand what it is that you're trying to say. I think one of my comments there in the chat is that, you know, grant writing is really a different skill set. You're selling your idea. It's different from writing a paper. The paper is reporting what you did. Grant writing is getting people excited, being very, very clear in your words and your strategy and how you're going to measure your outcomes. You know, you need to pass this around to a couple people who are not in your head to really read it for you and see if they have questions and if it makes sense to them. I think that being very positive about your idea and very direct about how you're going to accomplish it is the way to go. Some people try to make things sound really big or really complicated and a reviewer will just look at it and say, well, either they'll say, well, this sounds too complex and maybe it can't be accomplished or they'll say, you know, the time frame is probably not going to allow for all this. Or they'll say, I just don't understand what this person is trying to say and, you know, I'm moving on. I would use a concept with ours of, do you remember Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies? Okay, so when you write things, you have to realize that Jethro Bodine might be one of the people reading it. Keep it simple enough that everybody can understand it. But at the same time, you know, just, you know, think about your selling points. What are the things that you're bringing to this proposal that nobody else can bring? You know, and I think one of the hard parts too when you're talking like with the teaming partners is understanding what each member of the team brings to the table. So that the people that you're bringing to the table to actually do the work are the ones that are going to add value to it. And then everybody understands what their slice of the pie is. Because if you get like, I had some contracts like with the Air Force, certain general's office on San Antonio. And we had SMEs, subject matter experts in the medical field. It was for a serious medical game. And we had people that could deliver some of the technology solutions for the avatars and such. And it's like each person has to understand what their position is at the table so that they're not all fighting over the same piece. And as you understand that, you understand what they bring to the table. You can also be able to showcase that and what your solution is. Now, one of the questions we have here was from Kay. She says, are there any book recommendations that you give as far as like grant writing for dummies type thing? Well, you know, there are grant writing texts. I think the NIH, for example, has a lot of resources on their website. But there are people that actually go around doing these grant writing classes. And I think that was sort of where I ended up getting a few good text like resources. So I can't think of any books necessarily that I've bought, but I've attended some workshops and gotten workshop materials that are tailored to specific agencies. I think the main challenge, and I'm sure you will find a book if you Google it, but the main challenge is that each agency or organization or foundation has different rules and different ways that they want the material presented. So, you know, while the broader concepts, you can definitely get in a textbook like, you know, how to sell your idea and how to be very clear and direct and state your objectives and how to make good objectives and how to write good outcomes. The key is actually going through, parsing through that particular funder's opportunity and making sure that you're following it to a T. And that would be what I'd recommend. And also if you can, sorry, one more point. If you can get an old grant that was successful from that funder, then you're golden. Oh, yeah, yeah, build off success. Awesome idea there. All right. Well, thank you, Rachel, for a terrific presentation.