The path to government funding

The U.S. Department of Education and IES (Institute of Education Sciences) awarded their 2015 Small Business Innovation Research grants to 21 educational startups this spring (ies.ed.gov/ sbir/2015awards.asp). FedScoop reported that this year’s grants will total more than $9 million and cover initiatives in two phases. Phase I grants run for some 6 months and help startups develop prototypes for educational products; Phase II helps them move on to “fully scale their products over two years to be used in classrooms.” Nearly one-fourth of the grantees’ products focus on environment simulations through augmented and virtual realities.