Canadian Startups Find Opportunity in Educational Games

[Charles]

Canadian Startups Find Opportunity in Educational Games

itbusiness.ca

Grant Buckler
November 30, 2010

Editor's Note: Interesting that a Canadian company is winning awards from the US National Science Foundation.


In four years as a graduate student at the University of Guelph, Jeremy Friedberg developed a passion for teaching, but also learned how difficult it could be to teach complex biology concepts with words, paper and a blackboard.

When he asked for advice and a former professor suggested plasticine, Friedberg started on a path that eventually led him to build an award-winning software startup.

Three-dimensional models were so helpful in the classroom that "I started using those techniques more and more, and I started experimenting with 3D animation," Friedberg recalls. In 2007, he founded Spongelab Interactive, a company that makes educational games for school and consumer use and does custom game development for publishers, universities and others.

Toronto-based Spongelab has only eight full-time employees, but won the National Science Foundation's International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge award for interactive games two years running. Its games - including The History of Biology and Genomics Digital Lab - are used in 65 countries, Friedberg says.

Click here to read more.

Thanks to The Entertainment Economy Institute for the lead on the story.

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