How can VR be a force for good in helping those with dementia.
“I found regular exposure and interaction with wildlife, such as plants and flowers, significantly improves mental wellbeing.. I wanted to help seniors with dementia.’
Hannah Blair, Sky Tech Scholar and Founder of vrcalm.
Can you tell us a bit about what inspired you to start vrcalm and the purpose behind the company?
At university, I studied ways that Virtual Reality (VR) can help people for my final year project, and found research which demonstrated the effect of nature upon mental health. I found regular exposure and interaction with wildlife, such as plants and flowers, significantly improves mental wellbeing. I wanted to help seniors with dementia, as I have experienced the effects of the condition through my great-grandmother, Kathleen, so I endeavoured to build something that could help her and millions of other sufferers. I noticed she often wanted to go outside and explore, as she had a fair amount of energy and was often very bored and lonely in her care home. However, she had to wait until family came to visit her or for a care home excursion with supervisors for her to go outside. As Kathleen’s condition became more severe, I saw her mental wellbeing get gradually worse, along with her functional ability and independence.
Can you tell us how vrcalm works?
vrcalm is a series of wonderful environments that seniors are infrequently able to experience due to immobility. They can interact with plants and flowers around them while listening to therapeutic music. Interactivity is essential to our product as it differentiates us from anything on the current market, which is mostly static 360 film, instead of Computer Generated Imagery. Exploration is a key feature that we are tapping into, as it provides patients the stimulation they require to effectively and positively impact their mental wellbeing.
You won the Sky Tech Scholar Funding, can you tell us how this has helped you progress your business?
The funding helped vrcalm in many ways. We were able to fund equipment to help us kickstart testing, source more resources for development and pay for events and conferences to help with company growth and networking. It’s very hard for super early stage companies to get the funding they need if their initial requirements are quite expensive, so this was just what we needed to get the ball rolling. Fortunately for me, Sky are one of the bigger players of VR in the media industry, so I was able to tap into the knowledge and experiences of people within the Sky VR team to understand various aspects of VR from a business and technical perspective. This included distribution, pricing, marketing strategies, consumer adoption, current technologies and also about what projects Sky are currently working on and what challenges they are currently facing. Given that VR is only just taking off, due to affordability and accessibility of VR devices, it’s a new space and one of the biggest challenges is currently still consumer adoption, as only a small proportion of consumers use VR technologies. In light of this barrier, it was really useful to get advice from the likes of my mentor, Lucien Bowater, about how to tackle this issue and reach as many customers as possible down the line. Alongside this, I was also given a coach - Debbie Forster - who I could speak to on a monthly basis about general challenges and questions about my career journey which was incredibly helpful. I have never had a coach with whom I was able to discuss this aspect of my development, so this was very helpful for me.
What has been your biggest challenge getting vrcalm off the ground?
Like most startups, getting hold of funding is always an issue when resources are running low. Whilst we can’t afford to spend too much on technical equipment and VR headsets right now, we make it work where we can. I’m also very fortunate to have such a great team, who are able to take on a variety of tasks even if it is far from their field of expertise. I met my cofounder, Samar Babiker, at a Foundervine event called Startup 54, a hackathon that lasted over a weekend where people of a variety of backgrounds and interests came together to learn about the process of starting a startup and forming a team of diverse, driven and enthusiastic entrepreneurs. We were able to take away so much new business knowledge that helped us get started, not to mention the fact that the event brought myself and my cofounder together. We’ve had to take on public speaking, application writing, legal and admin work, and much more. It can be tough, but it’s been very valuable for us to learn about this and expand our horizons. Aside from resources, networking is also a huge challenge when we all work and study full-time! We’re not at the stage in our lives where we would take this on as a full-time job, and vrcalm is very much still what we would call a ’side-hustle’. We knew when we started that this was the case, but it certainly can a challenge to maintain the two jobs while keeping our work-life balance in check. I’m not one to allow myself or my peers to compromise their mental and physical health in favour of ’the hustle’, so it’s something I always try to be mindful of.
What excites you about the possibilities that Virtual Reality offers?
There has been a huge amount of development over the past few years in the space of Virtual Reality, which I love seeing. It’s becoming far more accessible, more affordable and much more common to see in households with certain demographics. So many people think it’s just about gaming. Whilst I absolutely love playing VR games, there is a lot of potential for VR in many other industries, and it is already being used in corporate training, marketing, and healthcare. It’s awesome to see awareness growing and more developers entering it, too. As the space grows, so does the investment in the hardware, which leads to more development of VR content, which benefits everyone at this early stage in the sector. Along with this, we can offer our products and hardware at a more affordable price, and therefore increasing the availability of our experiences, which is what I’m looking forward to most.
What is your main agenda this year for the business?
We are currently going full speed ahead this year with testing on anyone interested in trialing our product, particular those in care homes, and/or those with dementia. We’re keen to get feedback from as many people as possible so we can hone our product as much as possible before we publicly release it. We’re also looking for further funding in order to purchase more headsets to facilitate our trials.
Looking at the future, what do you feel the young start-ups of today can be most excited about?
The amount of support out there for young start-ups means that now is a fantastic time to enter the startup space. There are a number of great peer-driven communities designed to help each other with the challenges of being an entrepreneur. Be it co-working spaces, pitch deck reviews, legal help and support, product advice and recommendations - there is someone to help you. Foundervine is an example of a fantastic startup community, which hosts networking events and workshops, and provides resources and opportunities for early stage startup founders. They’re also a fantastic team of people, who are doing an incredible job more diversity within the startup community. It’s wonderful to see people willing to give up their time to support you, and it’s always a great feeling to be able to provide support in return. Alongside this, there are more competitions and grants than ever, as there is a huge demand for innovation and growth in various outdated industries. It’s exciting to see that the barrier of entry is becoming much lower, allowing for more and more promising and talented entrepreneurs solve society’s biggest problems.
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