Three Indiana University (IU) faculty-led teams were selected as winners of the 2023 IU Idea to Startup Pitch Competition on October 5. The initiative, hosted by the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office in partnership with The Mill, is an opportunity for IU faculty, staff and students to showcase their startup ideas and receive insight from industry experts.
Seven finalists presented their startup ideas to six experienced judges, scientists, investors and stakeholders.
Zeb Wood, lecturer in Media Arts and Science (MAS) at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, Indianapolis and Tom Hummer, assistant research professor of psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine won $15,000 and a six-month part-time coworking membership at The Mill with their startup idea. NeuroXR is a VR suite of programs for children with ADHD to help assess and improve social skills through adaptive training based on the child’s needs.
“As a lecturer and 3D artist, I think it is incredibly important to show our students that their skills in game-making, VR and 3D can be used to impact the world far beyond entertainment,” Wood said. “Having success in this competition is a humble confirmation of what we have been telling our team members for the last five years.”
Hummer and Wood and their schools have been partners in this work investigating whether VR can impact aspects of ADHD and ODD in children since 2015, and federally funded since 2019. Digital media has much to do with how humans interact, get distracted, and mentally heal. “Our research centers on how VR may be able to affect positive change in youngsters diagnosed with ADHD and ODD,” Wood said.
They have completed one research study, published and presented and are mostly through another federal funded research study that will wrap in 2024-2025.
Wood’s role on the research collaboration has been as the production manager and team manager of all aspects of the VR experience and how it is executed for the research partnership. He managed the teams of MAS and Human-Computer Interaction students that were hired over the years to design, user test, develop, and execute all 3D aspects of the experiences.
“My goal for a long time is to partner in ways that are natural for Indiana University and Luddy Indianapolis faculty and programs to illustrate to our peers and students what can be done in 3D, XR, and games outside of entertainment, to create more opportunities from those early examples, and to repeat those opportunities at an ever growing scale,” Wood said.
Read more about the competition
Media Contact
Joanne Lovrinic
jebehele@iu.edu
317-278-9208