The sky is the limit for ReadCloud

ReadCloud, the world's first social eReader and finalist in UQ Business School's $100,000 Enterprize business planning competition, has created eBook software which provides a new collaborative and educational online reading experience. The software, which can be downloaded from www.readcloud.com , allows users to create private reading groups where people can share annotations as text, pictures or videos inside eBooks that are stored in the cloud and can be accessed from any device. ReadCloud Co-founder and CEO Jeremy LeBard said the innovative software is aimed primarily at the education sector and has received widespread interest from schools nationally and internationally. "This technology opens up an engaging, collaborative and entirely new learning experience for students. "It challenges the traditional notion of one-way communication to recreate books as social learning tools." Taking the solidarity out of the reading experience and allowing readers to share multimedia annotations with friends is just one of the benefits according to Jeremy. "Social learning is gaining ground on traditional, formal learning styles and research has shown the vast majority of learning happens informally rather than through a curriculum model. "ReadCloud is all about improving the way students gain and retain knowledge," he said. Established in early 2009 it has been a busy 12 months for the ReadCloud team and Jeremy said the $100,000 prize on offer as part of the Enterprize competition would allow the company to continue the momentum. "$100,000 would be hugely beneficial to ReadCloud as we would be able to, within only a couple of months, finalise the copyright protected bookstore addition to the software which would widen the curriculum available on ReadCloud considerably. "It would allow us to supply the 500 teachers who have already signed up for trials with the full ReadCloud product suite to incorporate it into the 2011 school curriculum," he said. ReadCloud will compete against six other national finalists for the $100,000 prize at UQ Business School's Enterprize Pitch Day on Wednesday 20 October. Enterprize is a national business planning competition organised by UQ Business School to showcase innovative products and business models amongst potential investors. The Enterprize competition is proudly supported by i.lab Incubator, an organisation that aims to accelerate the growth of commercially sound, early stage technology ventures. i.lab is celebrating its tenth year in 2010 and has assisted over 100 companies progress from the start up phase to commercialisation. For more information, entry requirements or to enter Enterprize please visit www.enterprize.uq.edu.au.