(bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- [Moderator] "Now That's A Good Question with Phil Oldham" was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech.

- You can't predict the future, but you can count on Tennessee Tech always putting students first.

Our faculty, staff, and students have shown strength, compassion, patience, and kindness during these trying times.

I'm a college president, and Kari and I are also the proud parents of a Tennessee Tech student.

We want every student to be treated as we want our own son to be treated.

We understand today's challenges, and put the focus on students' success.

For us, it's personal.

That's what you can count on at Tennessee Tech.

(upbeat music) Hello, I'm Phil Oldham, president Tennessee Tech University.

Welcome to "Now That's a Good Question," a show devoted to the power of asking good questions.

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words.

We believe that a good question is worth at least a hundred answers, and leads to a lot of additional questions in the process.

Today I'm joined by Dr. Amanda Powell, who is a virtual reality producer with iCube here at Tennessee Tech.

After the break, I'll be joined by Michael Aikens who is the director for the Center for Rural Innovation, and a number of student entrepreneurship programs here at Tech.

So first of all, Amanda, welcome, and thank you for joining us for the program today.

- Yeah, thank you for having me.

- It's good to have you here.

And I just got to ask to start with, what is a virtual reality producer?

What do you do?

- I get that a lot.

(chuckles) Basically, it's my job to meet with clients first, kind of hear what their problems are, and then start thinking and talking through ways we might be able to apply virtual reality to solve it, or help them get somewhere they can't with traditional marketing.

So I take that idea back to our office, we have a super open, like collaborative fun environment where we can all kind of brainstorm, and then I'll be the one that will make like a storyboard for what that project's going to look like and give it to the team.

So I'm kind of the client person, and the storyboarding person.

- So ultimately, then this typically turns out in some kind of product, a virtual reality product of some kind?

- Yes.

And so it'll be about, it could be anywhere from like three months to get something made, to like a year and a half of, - [Phil] Oh, wow.

- Yeah.

It can be a long timeline, but yeah, we've made stuff for a bunch of different clients in a bunch of different niches, and it's always, we try to make everything we do publicly available so everybody can benefit from the product of the simulation basically.

- So, I guess, I mean, virtual reality, VR, I mean those are terms that have been, become somewhat known to most people today, but what does it actually mean, and why virtual reality?

What's the benefit of doing it in that kind of format?

- Yeah, so virtual reality, I'm gonna butcher this quote, but my favorite quote for virtual reality is it allows you to suspend belief in your current reality, and to continue belief in an augmented reality.

So it allows you to kind of put yourself in the place of someone else, or another experience you can't access normally.

So I think it invokes different pieces of your brain to kind of like act as muscle memory.

And that's what I, like a virtual muscle memory, I always say that.

So if you've saved a stranger from a burning building in virtual reality, you're likely to think, "Oh, I'm kind of a superhero.

"I can kind of help other people."

And they've even shown, virtual reality's increased helping behaviors in simulations just like that.

So I like to think of it as a tool, a conversation starter of education.

- So I mean, we sort of think in terms of video games, I guess, - Yeah.

- But it's really more than that, isn't it?

- Yeah, so the cool thing about a video game is you can play through a scenario, you see all these things, but they're all in front of you.

And what a lot of people forget to do when they first put on one of those virtual reality headsets is they look straight forward, and they forget that they can turn around.

And that turning around is the moment where you're like, "Oh I'm in another place, "I'm doing something different."

Like you can get lost in a video game, but virtual reality, you will literally forget where you are.

You'll forget you're sitting in a chair, you'll think you're sitting in a boat floating down a river.

And it just, it does something different to your brain.

- Sounds kind of scary.

(laughing) - Yeah, yeah, I've pushed people off ledges, and have had people scream, so.

- They actually have a physical reaction, I see.

- Yeah, stomach drops, knees shake, yeah.

- That's fascinating.

So tell me about the iCube, and what is the iCube, and what kind of work do you do?

I think you've described a little bit of it maybe, but.

- Yeah, so iCube, it stands for imagine, inspire, and innovate.

Those are like the three Is.

But I like to say we're solving traditional problems with creative solutions.

We do everything from traditional marketing, we're originally from the College of Business, and that's how this whole thing kind of started before virtual reality even existed in like the consumer version.

So we work with like the Tennessee Highway Safety Office and we do their marketing campaigns.

We run their social media, we answer the phone if somebody calls, like we do kind of the more traditional stuff, but also in like traffic safety, we've made simulations where you can drive around a city impaired, and see how that affects how you drive.

You can drive distracted, and it's kind of like virtual reality becomes this supplement to things we were already doing.

- So maybe that's a good example.

So for like driving impaired whether it's drinking or texting or whatever, can you actually impact behaviors through virtual reality?

- We know just from research other people have done, you can.

You can impact behavior.

I wish we could get a little bit more into the research side of it to see that, but kind of all we have is like anecdotal data from our office, but it is being used in high schools across the state.

It's being taken to different conferences when we had those, and yeah, it's, I think it can change behavior.

We kind of work under the assumption that it, we've seen it happen in other scenarios, so we kind of base our scenarios on that.

That research that we've read and study.

- So, with the iCube, I take it you have clients that you work with, certain groups, organizations, or tell me what kind of groups do you work with?

What kind of organizations?

- Yeah, so we've done a lot of different things with a lot of different groups.

Like I said, the Tennessee Highway Safety Office has led us to work with projects with the National Child Safety Foundation and Occupant Protection.

We've, our very first virtual reality project, we've done more work with them, is with the Tennessee Aquarium.

So we love working with them, but we'll also work with groups like, right now we've got a project with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

- [Phil] Oh, really?

- Yeah.

It's new, but that started from working with a project for the Tennessee Department of Health.

And so it's, we're kind of all over the board and that's one of my favorite things.

We don't fit into one content category, but we have these tools that could be applied across the board.

So, a bunch of different groups really.

- So some pretty high tech solutions to practical problems, I guess?

(mumbles) - So who does this?

I mean, and what kind of skill sets do you have to have to do this?

- Yeah, so we have, in our office, we have about like 12 to 15 like IQ core team members.

And we range from like marketers, we've got some biology majors, we've got computer science, but the big bulk of our, kind of diversity in the office, the people who can bring different things to the table are our students.

Virtual reality development, we've only had one hired virtual reality developer who wasn't a student.

Most of our projects have been completed by students.

- So do they come with prior experience in this at all?

- Not usually.

It's kind of like a passion project for them, those are the students that we see succeed the most, the ones who are like, "I want to get into virtual reality, "I'm gonna learn on my own, "I'm gonna come to the office and I'm gonna apply it."

Developers and artists, our greatest artist was a student first, and she interned with us, and decided she loved it, and we kept her.

So, and that's kind of how it works there.

You kind of follow your passion and see if you like it.

- So, a lot of students do participate in this?

- Yes.

- And it doesn't really matter what they're studying, or anything?

- No, we have people, we have tons of different project teams.

Right now, we have 50 student interns, this semester.

- [Phil] Wow.

- Yeah.

And even if they're working virtually, we try to put them in content teams based on not their major, but their interests.

So we've got people all over working on things you wouldn't expect them to work on.

And I think it's because they feel more passionate about something.

They get to try it out in our office before they like switch their major to something crazy.

But they're getting like real world practice and real-world projects that they can put on their resume.

- And they get to see some kind of tangible output at some point, right?

I mean, they get to see something they created shows up in a presentation, or a campaign at some point in time?

- Right, we've got one student who just created a logo.

It's called "For ResilienTN."

And any time the Tennessee Department of Health, and the Tennessee Department of Mental Health Services work on a project together, they're using her logo as their statewide branding endeavor.

And it's pretty cool.

Like that's like our top success story right now.

- And it was created by a student?

- Yeah, yeah, she's a fine arts major.

- That's fantastic.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So are there any particular projects you're working on right now that, other than what you mentioned?

- So I've kind of glossed over it a little bit, but we have so much going on with the opioid crisis right now.

A few years ago we started a project called TN Together where we're working to give like community resources for like finding help, and that's evolved into an actual service called Find Help Now where we're onboarding prescribers across the state, and like saying, "Hey this is exactly where you can find services you need "and they're open right now."

So it's kind of like an immediate connection.

But then our most recent project that we're working on with the Office of the Inspector General, is a new VR simulation for opioid education.

And I'm very excited about that.

It's like just getting started, but it'll be geared towards like adolescents learning about the effects opioids can have on you by playing a game.

- Unfortunately, that's a huge problem - It is.

- That we have.

And so, anything that we can do to help stem that is great.

I hope this works.

- Me too.

- I hope it has a real impact.

Well, with all this virtual reality, and augmented realities, and all those things that we kind of hear about, these buzz words, what's the end game of all this?

I mean, where does this go?

In just the few minutes we have left, maybe, what do you think is the future for all of this?

- So, I think it can only go up.

Like I can only see virtual reality getting more mainstream, more affordable.

I think like the next steps for virtual reality are having more developers, and having more creative minds, and creative clients too, to be open to the idea of using something like virtual reality 'cause people think, "it's a video game, I don't need that."

But there are so many applications, and I think as more content's made, we just need more people to make it.

- Yeah.

So, is there going to come a time when I don't have to take a vacation in Hawaii?

I just do it virtually?

- Yeah, yeah.

I I think you're at that point now, if you just grab like a fan blowing in the breeze, and yeah, put the headset on, you're there.

- Okay.

(laughing) I think I prefer the reality, but anyway, well, (mumbles).

Well, Amanda, thank you so much for being with us on the show today.

This is fascinating work that you all are doing, and I'm so excited that students are getting to get on the bottom floor, and see some great things that they can create.

So, I appreciate all that you're doing in iCube.

- Thank you.

- After the break, we'll be joined by Michael Aikens to talk about the Center for Rural Innovation and a lot of student entrepreneurship programs, so stay tuned.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to Now That's a Good Question.

After the break here, I'm joined with, by Michael Aikens, who's the director of the Tennessee Center for Rural Innovation.

Michael, thank you for being with us, and it's great to have a chance to throw some questions at you.

You've got your hands on a lot of things.

- Yeah, we've got a couple of things going on, it's, - I mean, you got the Center for Rural Innovation, you've got Rural Reimagined, and you have Eagle Works Competition.

All three of which are really a big deal on this campus.

Tell me a little bit about them, I guess, and is there connectivity, is there a common theme attached to it?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I'd say the common theme is we really want to spur prosperity and resiliency in our rural service area.

Anything that the community and working with higher education, anything that we can do to combine those two together to really help our communities is obviously a good thing.

And we do that through a variety of programs.

One of those is the Center for Rural Innovation.

We're actually a federally funded program that provides us dollars to really work with small businesses, entrepreneurs, chambers of commerce, and other public entities, and we help them with technical assistance.

So that basically, we look at what knowledge or resource gaps do they have?

What's hindering them from making it to their next business goal?

And we look at that, and then we're able to put what we call technical assistance in place to really help them reach those next business goals.

We also have the, as a part of the Center for Rural Innovation, most recently, I applied for (mumbles) subsequently awarded a Cares Act fund, or a Cares Act grant.

And what we're able to do with that is really expand our response bandwidth in the community with what we're doing with Center for Rural Innovation, and really working with our our small businesses and entrepreneurs to help survive and thrive throughout this pandemic.

Then we also have the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge where we like to say that we want to transform rural living through science, technology, innovation, and economic development.

And again, that's working with the community to really help spur that prosperity and really transform that rural living.

And we do that in a variety of ways.

We get students involved through service learning projects, they have it in incorporated in their classes, faculty are doing research, they're getting grants to really examine the challenges and issues that we have in rural areas, and working collaboratively with our community.

And then we also, of course, have Eagle Works.

Eagle Works is our student innovation and entrepreneurship program we have every year in April.

Actually April 10th, this year.

We have a Shark Tank-style pitch competition where our students actually come up with innovative and creative ideas for businesses.

They pitch that to real life judges, and they win a portion of $20,000 that's actually all donor funded.

- So it's real money attached?

- Real money.

- I want to get back to the Eagle Works maybe in a minute.

(mumbles) So, in terms of working with rural communities in the region, I mean, the issues that they have can be fairly daunting, I assume, how do you typically work with these communities?

What does that look like in practice?

- So, there's a couple different ways that we work with them.

It's usually, what we've got is, we already, through the Center for Rural Innovation, we already have a network of communities that we work with, and either they will approach us and say, "Hey we've got an issue that we want to examine, "and we think higher education in Tennessee Tech can help with."

Or we will actually do engagement and marketing, and let businesses, let communities, whoever it is that needs the help, let them know that we have that available.

So it really kind of works two ways, but at the end of the day, when we work with a community, we work with a chamber of commerce, whatever it be, we go in and we always start out with conversations and communications, and talking through what are the problems that you're experiencing?

Where do you want to be?

What vision do you have?

Where do you want to be in five, 10, 20, 25 years?

And then we start analyzing that, and figuring out, okay, what are some of the strategies that we can put into place?

Whether it be technical assistance, strategic help with them, the list goes on and on.

But like I said, it's really all about having the conversations with these communities 'cause the thing about it is, and I want to stress this, is this is not Tennessee Tech going into a rural community and saying, "Hey, we've got all the answers."

We don't.

What we're doing is, we're working collaboratively together to really figure out how do we get them to that next level, and how do we do that as a collaborative partnership?

- Do you have any, and we haven't been doing this too long, I guess, but maybe long enough to get some results.

Are there some positive feedback so far?

- Absolutely.

So, we've been doing this formally I'd say since, for about a year and a half now.

And there's been a myriad of things that have come out of this.

On the student level, we've started a student organization, a student club, and they do service projects every year.

So they've been working with College of Education, they work with engineering, really their presence is all across campus and in the community.

And then also on the faculty side we've raised, or I guess I should say more appropriately, we have been awarded over a half million dollars in research grants that are specifically looking at rural issues.

And we've got another, probably about that much, that have been proposed.

We've actually got a proposal out right now that's north of about $3 million.

And all of these dollars that we bring in for the research grants, will be for the university to work collaboratively with the community.

And I think one of the major things that I would say just about the program in general, is how well this has caught on, because this thing literally sells itself.

You talk to students, you talk to faculty, community members, you tell them what we're doing.

You talk about the idea, and then it's inspiration is ignited from there.

- This is relatively unique, isn't it?

I mean, are there very many universities in your observation that really are directing attention toward rural communities in their unique challenges?

- Not very many.

No university unless somebody has done something recently that we don't know about.

We think that we're pretty much the only in the nation that has the model that we do now.

Grand challenges are not unique across universities.

It's a very common thing, but as far as looking at rural issues, and directing all of our university lens and resources towards that, that's completely unique in the nation.

- That fascinates me because the challenges of rural America today are pretty significant, and continue to play out so it makes me feel good that we seem to be attempting to make a difference a positive way anyway.

- And we're just gonna, we're going to keep going through 2021 and it's going to get, it gets bigger every day.

- So, I think you mentioned this, but students get excited about working on these, don't they?

- They absolutely do.

- 'Cause I mean, they come from a lot of these communities, don't they?

- They do.

Our students come from a lot of these communities, and even if they're from an urban area, by default of going to Tech, they're here, they're in the Upper Cumberland, and our extended service area, and they get it.

And I think one of the things that really marvels me too, is this generation.

They want to make a difference.

They want to have real experiences.

They want to get in, and they want to help.

It's not just, "Oh, I had to do this for a class," or "I wanted to do it for a resume."

They literally wanted to do it because they know it helps, they can see what happens, they can see the effects on the community, and it's just a really feel good thing at the end of the day.

And it's spurring student leadership, spurring student involvement, faculty involvement, and quite frankly, the community too.

- So let's talk just, we've got a couple more minutes here, right?

Eagle Works.

- Yeah.

- I mean, we've been doing this a little bit longer.

- Nine years.

- Has it been nine years?

Wow!

- This is the ninth year.

- So, a lot of students have been involved in this over the past nine years.

Any success stories that stand out in your mind?

- Well, I would say two come to mind immediately.

A few years ago, I believe it was the 2016, our 27 competition.

We had a student team come through called Gigamunch.

And basically they made an app that would connect people that wanted to have unique dining experiences with amateur chefs that could cook a regional or an international flare.

So they'd have a Jamaican chefs, or you name it, Persian chefs, whatever.

And they would link those two, and they basically called themselves the Etsy of food.

I kind of likened them more to the Uber and Etsy of food because they would actually handle the logistics.

But anyhow, long story short, they were first place winners in the Eagle Works Competition.

I think they made nine or $10,000 during that competition, took that money, they actually relocated into Nashville so they'd have a larger customer base.

They did really good.

They had revenue in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then they had an opportunity for an exit, and they got bought out, and they actually came back to Tennessee Tech, and they have just graduated with computer science degrees.

So we're pretty excited about that.

- Oh, that's fantastic.

So we got some good success stories, real businesses?

- Real actual businesses.

And I think the other thing too is, regardless of whether they won or not, all the students are really coming up with innovative and creative solutions.

And that's what we're really looking for.

Another example that we have is, I went with Dr. Melissa Geist down to Cuba a few years ago, and we were able to take some students, and they got to work with the engineering students, Cuban engineering students.

And through that process, they came up, they figured out that the elderly population has issues with arthritis, and they actually created what's called the MetaFlex Therapy Glove.

And it's a glove that people that are afflicted with arthritis can put on, and they can easily, throughout the course of the day, they can do exercises.

And they're literally in the commercialization process right now.

- That's fantastic.

Well, I look forward to seeing that in the stores.

- Absolutely.

- So, well, Michael, thank you for being with us today.

This is fascinating, it's a great part of our university, and I'm so delighted that students can get involved in it.

So I want to thank Amanda, I want to thank Michael for being with us today.

I want to thank the viewers for joining us today as well.

And just remember, wings up from Tennessee Tech, and keep asking good questions.

(upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - [Moderator] "Now That's a Good Question With Phil Oldham" was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech.

- You can't predict the future, but you can count on Tennessee Tech always putting students first.

Our faculty, staff, and students have shown strengths, compassion, patience, and kindness during these trying times.

I'm a college president, and Kari and I are also the proud parents of a Tennessee Tech student.

We want every student to be treated as we want our own son to be treated.

We understand today's challenges, and put the focus on students' success.

For us, it's personal.

That's what you can count on at Tennessee Tech.

(bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music)