The star continues to rise for local educational publisher and exporter, Essential Resources. The company has just received confirmation of a $170,000 investment from the recently established Ministry of Science and Innovation (formerly the Foundation of Science, Research and Technology) for its new web-based curriculum planning software, Iugo.
“We put our toe in the water last year with a smaller funding application through FRST,” says managing director, Nicola Smith (left). “Alistair Adam at Venture Southland’s Enterprise Team encouraged us to aim a little higher this time and we are thrilled with the outcome. It was a lot of work, detailing the technological challenges and scoping out the entire project from start to finish, but we’re very satisfied to get the green light.”
Essential Resources publishes high quality classroom resources for teachers. Iugo is based on their highly successful Curriculum Planning Made Easy publications. It breaks down the New Zealand primary curriculum into an interactive web tool from which unit and lesson plans can be created. Teachers access their plans, anywhere, anytime through a web browser. They can also save plans, share plans and work collaboratively with colleagues in their school.
“We receive a lot of feedback on how important, but how time-consuming, school-wide and classroom planning can be and we wanted to create a teacher-focused solution. We’re all about making teachers’ working lives easier, and this is one area where a tool like Iugo can have a real impact,” says Nicola Smith.
Iugo (pronounced: I-U-GO) derives its name from the Latin verb meaning ‘to connect’. The online curriculum planning tool is in interim testing at selected schools and a Version 1 release is on target to go live in October this year, in time to help schools and teachers with their planning for 2012.
Essential Resources was a finalist in the ‘Innovative Approach to Business’ category of the 2010 New Zealand International Business Awards.
Contact Details
Nicola Smith, Essential Resources, ph 03 211 0335 nicola@essentialresources.co.nz
Phillippa Duffy, Essential Resources, ph 03 211 0335 phillippa@essentialresources.co.nz
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