Deal strengthens competitiveness of online learning platform for global mobile learners

WATERLOO, ON, Canada (April 23, 2013) — ClevrU Corporation today announced that it has acquired NewMindsets Inc., a company founded on online pedagogy researched and developed by two Schulich School of Business professors that has provided leading-edge educational content and services to over 10,000 Schulich students at York University over the past decade.

Through the acquisition, ClevrU will fully integrate NewMindsets’ proven e-teaching pedagogy in leadership, researched and developed by Professors Gareth Morgan and Jean Adams, into its world-class e-teaching platform, to be presented to York as a pilot and then delivered to millions of students worldwide.

TechVibes, EdSurge, Private Equity Hub, Yonge Street Media, and the Waterloo Record covered this announcement. The release is also viewable on CNW and in Chinese (.pdf).

The two companies announced a partnership in October 2012 to establish a second-generation online learning standard.

ClevrU had the mobile-friendly, multilingual, globally adaptive solution to create interactive learning environments; New Mindsets had spent 12 years developing and validating their pedagogy for an engaging, effective online learning experience with thousands of undergraduate and graduate leadership and management students at Schulich.

“We created NewMindsets so universities and colleges could deliver online education in a meaningful way,” says Morgan, founder and chairman of NewMindsets. “Now that our pedagogy is being completely integrated into ClevrU’s platform, we have the perfect solution to help students learn in a responsive, interactive and user-friendly environment.”

“ClevrU is excited to partner with New Mindsets and York University,” said Mark Arnason, president and CEO, ClevrU Corporation. “As the online education market matures, universities are looking at superior forms of online and distance learning as new revenue opportunities. ClevrU will provide a solution for educational institutions wishing to develop and deliver effective online courses and effective learning outcomes to students in Canada and internationally. Together, we’re going to build a marketplace where students can use a flexible, fully-customizable learning system to gain valuable, personalized learning outcomes.”

MaRS Innovation — working in close collaboration with Innovation York, York University’s commercialization office — developed New Mindsets’ commercialization plan, arranged the initial introduction between the companies, structured the initial partnership and negotiated the resulting transaction.

“York University is pleased to partner with ClevrU and MaRs Innovation to support this innovative technology,” said Robert Haché, York’s Vice-President Research & Innovation.  “Professors Morgan and Adams have developed an e-teaching model and pedagogy that will be integrated into ClevrU’s e-teaching platform and made available to students around the world. This initiative is a prime example of Innovation York’s role in working together with external organizations to help researchers maximize the social and economic impact of their intellectual property.”

“MaRS Innovation is enthusiastic about the commercial prospects represented by the marriage of ClevrU’s positioning in the e-learning market and content delivery system to the proven, highly engaging pedagogy methods and leadership training content developed by internationally recognized York University professors,” said Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO. “This transaction illustrates the effectiveness of MI’s commercialization process, our collaboration with our members and our contribution to strengthening of Ontario companies’ competitiveness on the world stage.”

About ClevrU Corporation

We are passionate about sharing education with the world and putting the right tools in the right hands, right now.

ClevrU  allows North American educators to reach beyond the confines of their local markets by removing the barriers to online international education delivery. Simply put, ClevrU allows educators to deliver knowledge to users anywhere, anytime, in the student’s language of choice.

ClevrU’s dynamic, multilingual World Class Learning Platform, provides educators with the tools to deliver rich, multi-media, customized e-Teaching content to millions of people around the globe. Uniquely, the ClevrU Platform adapts content based on the OS of the users’ mobile device and browser speed, recognizes the user’s browser language setting and automatically sets the navigation tools, user interfaces, and applicable content to the language of choice, supports both synchronous and asynchronous course structures, and supports multiple pedagogies and flexible content presentation methodologies.

The ClevrU platform removes other barriers to international online success with innovative operational elements such as operating servers behind the firewall in key emerging markets to remove latency and content filtering constraints, providing innovative translation solution, and providing a local market online Educational MarketPlace in each geography and local e-commerce solutions and established marketing relationships with in-market social media powerhouses like Renren and Sina Weibo.

The student experience is uniquely interactive in the way in which the ClevrU World Class Platform presents integrated learning objects, provides interactive discussions linked to point of content, and enables students to combine text from multiple learning objects with their own observations into a set of integrated and context related course notes — all in the student’s language of choice. The patent-pending ClevrDNA analytics captures every student interaction and provides deep analytics that can be used track individual or group progress, identify and respond to learning flashpoints, assess student learning patterns and predict outcomes and guide the student experience through the learning process.

About Innovation York

Innovation York is the commercialization and industry liaison office for York University. The unit provides services to faculty members, trainees, and industry within four service streams: agreements, industry liaison, commercialization, and entrepreneurship and startup acceleration. Innovation York’s goal is to provide an integrated suite of services to the York research community, in order to facilitate research, realize the commercial, economic, and social potential of research outcomes, and to create a culture of industry-engaged scholarship and entrepreneurship.

About MaRS Innovation

MaRS Innovation is the commercialization agent for Ontario’s exceptional discovery pipeline from 16 leading academic institutions. As a single-entry point to member-based activity of $1 billion in annual research and development, MI is a gateway for investors and licensees to access technology assets. Supported by the Government of Canada through the Networks of Centres of Excellence, by the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and by its 16 member institutions, MI is a transformational partnership that turns research strengths into commercial opportunities. MI’s portfolio includes the most promising assets from its members’ pipeline, which it advances into global markets through industry partnerships, licensing and company creation.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, marketing and communications manager.