Augmented Reality Learning

Review: I thought the premise of your venture is unique. Most students in this course chose to pitch a product to others, while you decided to pitch a service, one which is very necessary for educators to navigate the upcoming AR trend. The use of visuals throughout both the pitches were excellent and helped show the power of AR. I believe that something you can do to improve the pitches, is to make more clear in the elevator pitch what your service is exactly, as the elevator pitch seem more like a pitch for AR in general and not the service you are trying to provide. Overall as an EVA, I would invest in a company that aims to consult on the correct deployment of AR.

Review: Fantastic elevator pitch! You grabbed my attention immediately with your visuals, statistics and confident tone. It is clear that you understand the market potential, pain points and both the pedagogical and business side of your concept. I believe that your venture sits directly at the cusp of an explosive market and you are tackling it from the right position. By the end of the pitch, I was ready to sign up! As I proceeded to your full pitch, your market readiness, research and understanding of AR potential felt credible and promising. There is a plethora of AR apps and training programs out there but I haven't come across such an ambitious idea of combining all of it together into a simple, honest and necessary platform. This degree of ambition, to tackle such an evolving and flourishing market, would worry me as an EVA but I found myself assured as soon as I felt any reasonable doubt. Besides the strong weight of your research, business model and venture concept, your presentation skills are spot on with great pacing and beautiful visuals. I felt like you have truly achieved the narrative feel of a pitch, which I have yet to come across. As an EVA, I would certainly be interested in investing and if you don't intend to pursue this venture, I would certainly invest in you and any venture you should choose to pursue. Great work overall and thanks for the wonderful pitches!

Rob, Your proposal addresses a niche that is very important and somewhat overlooked in the marketplace. While there are many companies developing products and creating new and amazing technologies for education, there seems to be far fewer resources and providers of the 'how to' and 'what's out there' consultation. I think your proposed enterprise has great potential and provides many different industries and educational fields with not only the tools necessary to create AR learning environments, but the context and information necessary to even imagine and identify the where and how this technology can offer benefits and opportunities for both the training institute and student. I would like to know more about the services you would offer, the marketing or pilot projects you propose as a company to engage and initiate your companies role in the use and expansion of AR in education. My interest would be based on the need and opportunity you have identified here and this is something I would be very interested in funding and joining as an investor. I know there are comments in the other posts about research and providing curriculum links....while I agree that this is a need and important elements for AR technology, I am not sure I agree that your company should incorporate these elements. You may be more successful focusing on a specific niche and partnering with the many and the best performers in these areas to ensure the best product and flexibility in an emerging market and industry, Great resources and I am very interested to know more about this technology so thanks for taking this on. On a side note, I met a woman from the Childrens Hospital in Vancouver a few years ago and we got into a discussion about technology and training. One of her biggest challenges as an administrator was the management of training staff in the wards. At great expense new staff were shadowed by an experienced nurse or physician as they performed tasks and trained on the floor and on real patients. She said she dreamed of a video game or interactive environment like what pilots use in flight simulators where trainees could practice skills until they passed a certain level of competency and their results would be shared with both staff and with the trainee. So, AR would be a fantastic option for her and one that your proposed company, in theory, could suggest and support in the creation and development of the tool for their hospital space and specific wards!

Rob Theriault, I am so glad someone took on AR. I am extremely interested in VR, AR, and the next generation of media. I enjoyed both of your pitches as they were well paced and visually pleasing. (What did you use to make the pitches?). The visuals really bring home the possibilities of AR. You will have no trouble convincing people that AR is a useful tool that schools should strive to incorporate.

I was particularly drawn to your concern with research. Your venture has that humanitarian slant that will appeal to people interested in furthering the tech for altruistic or personal motivations. You say you are interested in the research side and can collaborate, but as an investor I would like more specific details.

Your venture is basically acting as a facilitator that helps schools navigate the perhaps confusing world of AR technology (“hardware, software, media design, experts, training, and 24/7 support”). As an educator, I would be interested in some curriculum integration. You might help tech-weary teachers actually plan the lessons that will use AR.

Finally, I think there is a lot of promise here. I have considered this type of ventures for other areas, such as science. For example, Little Green Thumbs provides training, equipment, and curriculum materials for numerous “life cycle of a plant” outcomes in public schools in Canada. The experience they facilitate could not be easily accomplished by a regular teacher with every other subject to worry about. So this type of “facilitatory’ venture might have some real promise.

Rob, you have targeted a very important market and I can understand where you are coming from wanting to get involved. This was also the first venture pitch that was entirely video-based which was an interesting change. My concern is that the business itself - is it just helping schools pick what AR technology is best for them? Or will your company make custom materials for interested customers? The potentials you state throughout your pitches are VERY important, but it seems like you are promoting the benefits of AR moreso than your actual venture. I liked how the elevator pitch was actually spliced from the content of your venture pitch too. I am a BIG fan and believer of the potentials of AR in the classrooms for years to come, so this was an interesting take on a venture for that market. Good job!

I thoroughly enjoyed your elevator pitch! I thought the wording relayed a very clear message and the visuals were very stimulating. There is a definite need for a company to step in and act as a guide, teaching teachers how to optimize AR use in the classroom. many companies are building AR readers and content. If you can fill the gap of how this technology gets handed down to the user level it could be very effective. Many instructors will be overwhelmed by AR, to act as the middle man and help them find a way to fit it in to their curriculum would be great. I think this venture is trying to tackle all aspects of AR and that may not be feasible. Most people understand the greatness and potential of AR, but how it actually gets used and with what kind of ease will be what is important. If your venture could help maintain AR's longevity in the classroom, I am sure it could be successful. I would have liked to see more information on what makes this venture different from all the other AR companies out there and a greater focus on the business model. Great job on your pitch!

Hi Rob, I think you have put together a very informative venture and elevator pitch. You have been able to express your product idea in a conducive way. I particularly liked that you cited specific ways augmented reality can assist in different subject areas. I think it’s a fantastic idea. I also think to start a company like this would be a tremendous endeavour because you are going to be providing everything that is under the AR umbrella. The idea I am sold on, but the potential logistics of distributing, maintaining, guiding, training and it looks like researching requires a global corporation with unparalleled channels of distribution and resources with an unlimited amount of start-up costs. I am interested in seeing a little more on the revenue model and what the ask is for investors. You may need to make some alterations which I think moving away from distributing hardware and software is a very good idea. The pitch, however, is very well put together with the images, videos and sound really working together to outline your concept.

Hello Rob, Thank you for sharing and showing me the true potential of AR. After I watched your very polished presentation that covered everything that you needed to cover you have my EVA attention. I especially like the research component that you proposed. As an EVA that is important to me because as you had said there are many models and the industry is on the cusp of booming. I think it was a good idea to position your company as a "middle man" to avoid any conflict of interest troubles.

Hi Rob,

Wow, thanks for giving me a view of the future and a sense of where education and learning will go. The images you included were powerful and feels so futuristic, yet it will be used in our classrooms soon! Your presentations were professionally done and engaging, I kept wanting to make notes but was hooked by the fantastic images of AR in the hands of our learners that I did not want to look away! Very inspiring to be sure!

I did have difficulty understanding exactly what your company would do to help schools with AR, until I realized, and correct me if I am wrong, you want to be THE one-stop shop for educational institutions and all of their AR needs. This is a huge venture, huge. I appreciate that a comprehensive AR shop and the volume you expect will allow you to resell products at a discount. I also like that your company will develop expertise with the full range of AR products and AR content creation.

As an investor, I wonder at the logistics of organizing all of the different service departments. 24/7 service is really broad, as is Hardware, Software, Content Development and Training. I wonder if narrowing your target market might provide some focus for you to commence building a team with expertise in a specific content area, or working with specific age ranges. Having a more specific focus at the beginning might help you build a reputation and provide growth milestones for breaking into other educational markets.

I think your venture idea is definitely futuristic and inspiring.

Briar

“FEEDBACK” Nice pitch, Rob. Your elevator pitch successfully highlights exactly what your company does and who it is intended for. In fact, I think that you have been able to focus your efforts directly towards the educational venture investor. You have provided some exciting insight that I do want to learn more about Augmented Reality Learning, both as an educator and as an investor. Your video presentation is quite polished, effective and professional looking. I would have like to have seen more images of the company side. As an investor I want to see more about the company and people that I am considering getting involved in. But, I suspect that will likely be saved for the main venture pitch. One concern that may be raised will be with the length of the video. However, this was not a problem for myself as I found that the information kept me engaged and wanting to learn more. Overall, I liked the initial pitch and found it to be very effective since it would be one that would entail some further investigation. Great job!