ViewPoint founder Elisabeth Gerber was saluted for the company's launch as part of Summit Venture Studio with a bell ringing held at U-M Innovation Partnerships. Other key team members, including U-M Center for Academic Innovation Executive Director James DeVaney and Senior Director for Educational Technology Ben Hayward, attended the ringing of the bell with the Summit Venture Studio team joining the ceremony virtually.
Innovation Partnerships celebrates the launch of new U-M startup companies with the ringing of a ceremonial bell to celebrate the hard work and innovation that led to the launch of the startup company, and to learn more about the company's vision for having the U-M innovation have a positive impact on society at scale.
ViewPoint is a university-developed software for educators and other professionals to provide high-quality role-playing simulations. It is a highly customizable platform that provides options to organize groups, assign roles and preconfigure new tasks based on previous learning outcomes so that learning experiences can mirror real-world scenarios.
A long time in the making, the idea behind ViewPoint was first disclosed with Innovation Partnerships in 2016. Since then, the program has continued to evolve with pilots launched at U-M and other universities, and participation in the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program.
In 2022, Innovation Partnerships met with Summit Venture Studio, a venture studio with a focus on commercializing novel faculty inventions via university tech transfer across the United States, and thought they may be a good fit for ViewPoint. After making the connection, Summit Venture Studio and ViewPoint moved forward with a collaboration with ViewPoint being licensed to Summit Venture Studio late last summer.
“The support provided by Innovation Partnerships was incredible,” Gerber said. “They were always there to push me when needed, listen and guide me through my first journey as an entrepreneur. Their expertise and partnership allowed us to move forward with commercializing ViewPoint and bring the technology to support engaging learning experiences to more and more teachers and learners.”
To learn more about ViewPoint, visit: https://viewpointsims.com/.
