An entrepreneurial young company based at Telford
Campus’ e-Innovation Centre (e-IC) is gaining international praise
for its ePortfolio software systems for the education
sector.
In 2004 Pebble Learning, established by directors Colin Dalziel
and Shane Sutherland, piloted their innovative PebblePad ePortfolio
system at the University of Wolverhampton with just 160 individual
users.
The company can now boast over 300,000 users in over 100
customer organisations worldwide and is gaining a reputation for
its service:
Harry Owens of Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, told
them: “You provide the best customer support I’ve ever had, even
though you’re on the other side of the planet.“
HIGH PROFILE VISITORS
e-IC has recently played host to some high-profile visitors.
Government officials from the Centre for Enterprise Inc (CED)
for St Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean.
Simone Murray, Manager for Business Development Services, and
Claudette Murray, Business Development Officer, visited the e-IC as
part of a study tour to find out more about business incubation in
the UK. They said they would be implementing some of the ideas they
had seen when they returned.
e-IC also welcomed senior executives from Research on Investment
(ROI), a specialist global market research company with corporate
headquarters in Montreal, Canada.
ROI has been appointed to represent regional development agency
Advantage West Midlands in the United States and America.
Three senior executives visited the e-IC as part of a tour of
the West Midlands to highlight the region’s diverse and dynamic
business base.
New ICT technologies currently being showcased at the Centre
include the ‘intelligent poster’, which allows specific, requested
information to be downloaded when a mobile phone ‘touches’ the
poster hotspot.
In addition, the ‘smart card’ entry system uses Radio Frequency
Identification to track the entry and movement of individuals
within a building.
