Austin Stanbury - Helping Neurodiverse Adults Overcome Obstacles to Independence.

All right. That's probably going in the outtakes. Welcome to The Glow Up. This is Fabulous Conversations with Innovative Minds. I'm Nathan C and today I'm talking with Austin Stanbury of Augmented Info Systems. Austin, so good to see you today.

Hi Nathan, how are you? It's so good to see you doing it. Frankly, it's always a pleasure.

Austin can you introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about what you do at Augmented Info Systems.

So, Augmented Info Systems is a startup. We're a VR development studio based out of the UF Innovate Hub in Gainesville, Florida. So we're right across the street from UF, and really what we focus on is accessibility in education. And as I'm sure you're familiar, accessibility means many different things to many different people. And education itself is a really broadly defined category. Right now, our focus is on neurodivergent individuals with high support needs. We're also interested in education at institutions like UF, like USF, who we have projects with right now. That focus on neurodiverse students but also students without neurodevelopmental disorders and those individuals really what we found is that accessibility is accessibility for all. What makes something access accessible for our neurodiverse users makes these applications and educative materials. It's really accessible for everyone and improves the experience for everybody involved. And that's just been a great conclusion that we brought out of this work that we're doing.

Well, you've got my attention. For those who maybe aren't as excited about accessibility and virtual reality as I am, could you give a little details into how you're using virtual reality to support neurodiverse people people with neurodiverse brains and, how you've seen it impacting other students as well.

Absolutely. So, I call virtual reality the"helping technology." That's what I think of it as. The reason why is because the use cases that we see, obviously entertainment is a great and really valuable industry. Sometimes, that's what we live for, arts and entertainments, etc. What we've decided to focus on, of course, I know, I see the art books in your background, I was admiring I know Basquiat, as you might know, is quite popular in South Florida that art is just everywhere down in Miami, but At any rate, we've really taken an interest in using virtual reality to help people in everyday life, in ordinary situations. Whether at school, at work, or even with their health institutions whether they're using this out in public at the point of service, or Whether they're doing this at home in support of what they're doing in other areas of their lives. So, why is this an effective technology, right? Virtual reality allows users to experience instructional information, and you know, other like scenarios in ways that they just could not do otherwise, right? So one of the core things that we've developed is vocational training support tools. For individuals with high support need. So these are neurodiverse individuals who may visit a support center daily to receive, mental health support, vocational training support. Things to help them live more independently, gain autonomy, and build their self confidence. Which is extremely important. Individuals from all walks of life, everybody deserves to have personal dignity, self esteem, and a full life. That, you know, where they can fully engage with everything that life has to offer. But Nathan, as I'm sure you know, and everybody from everywhere in this world, we all deal with it. There's big barriers to doing that. Some of those barriers are our own anxieties. And this is especially true for neurodiverse individuals with high supportneeds they may not be comfortable interacting with strangers, for instance, or being alone in areas that they're not familiar with, like getting oriented at work or having difficult conversations with co workers or their boss, et cetera. So we can allow them to practice those skills in new ways before they ever step foot on to where they might be working or come into contact with people that they don't Don't know and might give them some pause or anxiety.

Oh, I love it. The idea of taking those stressful scenarios and breaking them down into steps and giving people the opportunity to practice, to engage, to build that, you know, those skills, those confidence, even some of those, patterns that you need to, navigate through difficult social interactions ahead of time and so that they can be more prepared and independent., I think are fantastic goals. I was, you know, anecdotally, I spent a decent part of yesterday supporting some family at the hospital. And as you're talking, Like, thinking about the number of kind of awkward social interactions, very nuanced practices, right? Like, the hospital staff right now are pretty overwhelmed, and being able to separate the mood and their emotion from like the task at hand and to understand how everything comes together. I could see a number of ways, that there could be these pain points or bottlenecks where folks might struggle if it wasn't hopefully we're going to the hospital very infrequently, and being able to learn Those sort of rules, those social interactions, those negotiations, it is not easy for anyone and, being able to practice at home could be fantastic.

That's right. You know, Nathan, I heard I heard a phrase that stuck in my mind. So I'll share this with you. I am terribly afraid of flying. I am so afraid. I think I mentioned this. I'm also afraid of earthquakes, which bothers me every time I go out to California. In fact, to tell you the truth, I have quite a bit of anxiety, and one of my friends shared a phrase with me that I never forgot, which is that"courage is not the lack of fear", right? To be courageous, one has to overcome fear and anxiety, right? And what I see is that, these feelings that I have about, for instance, what's flying in earthquakes, etc. This isn't just a one person thing, and it's not just flying and earthquakes, right? People have a range of anxieties and fears in everyday life. It's something that you can't get away from, not that you can't overcome. But it's something that everybody experiences. And, that makes tools like this relevant for just about everybody. Regardless of how how confident you may feel, et cetera, there's always something that we need that little extra push to overcome, isn't there? So, that's one thing that we really try to help with.

This leads really nicely into my next question, which is, how did you come to this idea? Can you, can you tell us a little bit about your innovation journey and how you settled on, on this particular problem? Thank you

Oh, I absolutely can. So Before I started working in virtual reality, I worked in the public sector. And you know, whether that was in state and local government or in consulting. So we got started in health, we got started probably almost five years ago. We got started around UF with COVID. That's when we first came out to California, and spoke with Unity. That was such a great time. That was the first AR Minute. And from there, we've grown. And one thing that we've realized is that there's many institutions today that are ready to adopt VR. They know about the technology, they're excited about it, and they want to try it. I think the scale is starting to tip. I know everybody wants to say that, oh, the VR winter's over, it's VR summer now, and then you've got the skeptics, oh, it's not, it's not, oh, it is, yada, yada. In my life, I think it is. I see people in their everyday life are familiar with this technology. And they want to use it. And when they do use it, it's effective. We've seen a lot of great stories around there.

I would concur in some levels. For one of the last events I was producing, we made a number of different filters and camera effects. And the ideas and the apps that were both accessible, you know, easy to use, simple, anybody can use it on a website. And the ones that were giving them the right kind of bite, the right amount of new technology experience, actually exceeded my expectations in terms of their interest and engagement with the tools. The learning that I took from, it was. It's maybe not people's interest to try these things, but it's more about access and how easy it is to actually use, right? Like, we still might be battling some user experience issues in that winter or spring that we're in.

Well, that's right. You know, and with institutions, et cetera, everybody's got laptops. Everybody's got phones. At one time there was a push to adopt those things. I mean, I remember. I'm 28 years old, so I was going to middle school in the, you know, mid 2000s, basically, toward, really towards the end of the 2000s. And I remember, The first laptop carts and then rolling the laptop cart into the room. And I was thinking,"Oh my God, I never even saw this." Now from where I'm at now, I can see the school itself must have been thinking,"this is a huge investment. Is this going to pay off? Is this technology really going to work out? What's wrong with the way that we were doing it before?" And you know what? I think everyone today, It looks at those kind of laptop carts, right? Now, every person has access to those, and there's so much that we do in education that's built off these platforms that are accessible. When it comes to VR, We're just starting that process again. There's no question that there's barriers to adoption based on cost, based on availability of the devices, and the familiarity of the early adopters. That's there. But, there's no reason to believe that that can't be overcome. It's been overcome a million times before. And, as I said before, I think of this technology, this is the helping technology. That's what it does. You know, when people, when, you know, when, when the decision makers, when the institutions get familiar with what this technology can do personally, not just reading stories or hearing a sales pitch, for instance, but really experiencing it and seeing it for themselves. I think there's nothing that's going to stand in the way of widespread adoption. And we're seeing a crack already. You know, I think this is a foregone conclusion. So tell me in

I love it.

of this, you know what I mean? But what I think, absolutely.

Austin, I've got it on my calendar. We're going to check it. I love it. So, you've already mentioned a number of ways that you've been learning from your customers and starting to prove out these ideas you have about, VR's ability to support these individuals and as this teaching tool. Can you can you share, how did you gain these insights? And did what you learned from your customers impact either your product or company direction in any way?

Well, let me just say this. We have amazing clients. The clients that we've worked with and the institutions, I will just say right now, I mean, we cannot thank them enough. And we have learned so much from working with these institutions. Who are the institutions that we're working with in the first place, right? You know, a big body of the institutions that we work with are Day Support Centers or Institutional Support Centers for Neurodiverse Adults. These are individuals that are really on the front lines, right? These are individuals and institutions that are providing resources where no other resources are available and reaching out really directly to the families, the communities, and the individuals to meet with them. Those are the greatest people that you can work with. They know the problems intimately. They know the people intimately. They see them every single day. And you can learn so much from working with individuals like that. You don't have to guess. If you have a question about how something should operate, how something will be received, You can just ask. You don't need to, you don't need to guess, you don't need to pull out your 8 ball, etc. So, working with those individuals, that has taught us so much. It's changed, frankly, it's even changed my view of what VR can do, just in the time that we've been working. Because we worked with people that didn't use it before, and seeing them accept it, Seeing them say, Oh my God, this is really working. That's a Eureka moment, right? And that's the slogan of California, isn't it? Eureka, there, that's a tie in.

Amazing.

So

The, you know it's, it's so close. It's not quite the same you know, persona, but when I was at the HLTH conference and I was talking to people about how do you make innovation happen in a clinical setting in the healthcare world over and over again, the, the one answer"I got was involve nurses, First," right? Like if you're not involving nurses, if you don't have those frontline caretakers, doers, the people that make things happen, if you don't have them on board, if you don't have their best interests, if you don't have what their actual pains are, that app is going nowhere. It doesn't matter how cool it is, right? These are people with no time, a lot of, you know, demands on what they do. I'm impressed one, that you were listening to these, these frontline caregivers, and two, that you were able to, to learn so much and so quickly from them. Sometimes that feedback isn't always friendly, they're going to tell you when it's not enough or when it doesn't work.

That's right. But let me say this, okay. And this I think is just a general principle for people in all business, no matter what, whatever you're doing, startups to big corporations, right? We are not here for us, okay? We're here for them. That's the sole reason for doing any of this, right? So if those people aren't involved, Where is your point of view even centered, right? You know, if you're not focusing on the needs of the people that you're serving, are you focusing on, on what? You know, your desire to make it big or whatever, those things are great, but It's not, that is not the, that, that's, that's not the bread of this endeavor, right? The, the day to day of it is the people,

Yep.

That's what it's all about. That's all it's about. That's what I think.

I'm, I'm so heartened by that perspective. I. I'm a little bit older than you and being able to say the focus on actually making something of impact making something that contributes to the world at large continues to be a trend that I see from entrepreneurs of your generation. And it is one of the big reasons why I want to have these conversations because, There's so many people out there I don't know anybody in the workforce who wants to do a mediocre job and contribute to nothing, right? Like we spend so much of our time at work, like we want it to be meaningful. And, to have a not only a product, but a company founded on that. That value is amazing. So you're doing this for the people, you're doing this for a population that you obviously care a lot about. So, let's dream a little bit. What does you know, what is your ultimate glow up for Augmented Info Systems look like, and what will Augmented Infosystems be if there were no barriers? If you knew you couldn't fail, where are you taking it?

My greatest dream, okay, I've been thinking about this for years and years. I would like to take a block in downtown Fort Lauderdale, where we, where I'm, I'm from, you know, my family's there, and build a school, okay? My dream really is to, is to build a school, an educational facility that is focused on using virtual reality to teach. From the ground up. So, every subject, every learner, right, taking, you know, anything that you can imagine, whether it's physics, biology, anatomy, history, life skills, mental health support, etc. Doing all of that through these new interfaces and the interfaces to come. Whether it's, you know, it's not going to be Oculus Quest in 10 years when, you know, VR summer, as I said, right, it's going to be something new. It's going to be something better, but I think that this is what I think, as I said before, you know, accessibility, is accessibility for everybody, right? I mean, making some, removing those barriers to learning is good for everybody. And. What I see from the educational system, and from support systems across America that I've interacted with, right, is that the learners themselves, they, they face barriers. Whether it's reading a textbook puts me to sleep. Whether it's I need multimodal instruction. Whether it's I'm not visual, I'm more auditory, etc. Okay? But, if you can take somebody and put them there, which you can in VR, whether it's an individual that's trying to get ready for their first day at work, or it's an individual that wants to learn about the solar system, where you can make them fly through the stars, okay? Those type of experiences, in my view, are the crux of the education of the future. It's what it's going to be built on. don't see any other way that it could be. Does that make me crazy? I don't know, but that's my dream.

I was gonna ask you about having a physical location for a virtually based education center, and then And then I caught you saying, well, it's probably not going to be what the headsets that we're thinking about today. And I was like, oh, maybe it's not headsets. Maybe it's just immersive learning. Maybe it's personalized and multimodal. I love, just even hearing you talk so, organically about different learning styles, about, right those of us that learn from podcasts, walks, or, my kids who are, like, complete YouTube students, being able to have the modes and tools that work for anyone is, is like a pretty audacious goal and I can't wait to see you at that ribbon cutting ceremony. So go get it!

We'll see what happens. Thank you.

So, your early years with Augmented Info Systems and this Dream Goal Future State. Is there anything that you're looking for now to help you move on to the next the next stage? Whether it's help learning network, research opportunities, et cetera.

There absolutely is. And I can speak to this very clearly. This is so exciting, right? Virtual reality is getting to a stage where there are major institutions that are conducting large scale validation of these technologies. The startups developing the tech might be small. There's still not a ton of market consolidation in virtual reality, which is a good thing. Give us space. You know, I mean, that's what we want. I think that's what I want. But the institutions that we're working with, whether it's Stanford, whether it's the VA, whether it's here you know, we're working with University of Florida. We need partners to validate this technology in the eyes of individuals who are not VR enthusiasts. VR enthusiasts, they believe, and we need those people. That is the spirit in this industry. But, for this industry to be a success, it has to reach individuals. that don't think about VR or XR in their everyday life. Those type of institutions, whether that's medical institutions that want to conduct clinical validations of VR interventions for individuals with a variety of mental health support needs, or educational institutions that want to conduct validations of learning technologies you know, measuring learning outcomes for students, engagement retention over time, et cetera. That is what needs to happen now. It is what's happening now. And let me say this, that's what we need too. Okay. So, so call me. Get me on LinkedIn, whatever, you know, I am so excited to talk with anybody. Who wants to not just see this work, but see how this works. Prove it on paper, at conferences, with data. That's what we need.

Prove it in public with data. That is going to be my new gold standard for any sort of innovation use case. I absolutely love it. So Austin you mentioned that you'd love to connect with folks who are interested in learning more about VR for education use cases, for skills development, to, who want to make a proof point in the future literature of spatial computing. So how can people learn more? How do, how do people follow up with you?

That's right. Well, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I'm on there every day. Please find me, Austin Stanbury. You've got my name. We also have our website, AugmentedInfoSystems.com. You've got my email link there, etc. So, please reach out. I think even my personal cell might be on there, so shoot me a text. You know, we're in different time zones. Guess what? I'll wake up. I will talk to you. Really, because Because, again, it's not for me. You know, it's for the people that we're trying to reach. That's what it's about. I will stay up as late as it takes. I'll wake up in the middle of the night for your call. Whatever. I want to, work with you, work together. So, that's, that's my message. That's my call to action,

Amazing. I, that's going to be a fantastic place to leave it. Austin, we might have to have a follow up conversations around some of my some of my advice around rest, recharge, and a balanced life for founders. But I'm not going to dampen this enthusiasm today.

Thank you so much, Nathan. If I can stop you just for one moment. I think you mentioned that you would do a community spotlight. Is that right?

Heck yeah, was there somebody you wanted to suggest for the community spotlight?

There was one group where we learned everything that we know about XR, and that's the University of Florida Digital Worlds Institute. The Digital Worlds Institute, specifically the MIDAS program, it's a group of really passionate individuals every year, that you know, are part of this amazing master's program. We have really, really wonderful professors and thought leaders in our space. I, I frankly love it. It's an amazing place to be if you're in Florida, so that's my community shout out, and thank you DW for everything, really.

Oh my gosh, that is so sweet. Austin, it has been so cool to see your journey you know, starting from University of Florida, moving into this, you know, passionate mission for augmented info systems. I'm very eager to learn more about the case studies and proof points that you've been working on and have a few ideas of folks I might want to connect you around who I think your, your research and insights could be helpful for. So, thank you so much, Austin, for joining us. On The Glow Up can't wait to see what you've got going.

Thank you so much, Nathan.