| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | Walnut Creek, CA (2008) |
| Founder(s) | Sandy Khaund |
| Headquarters | Bay Area, CA, United States |
| Products | Virt U for iPhone/Android Khan Academy for iPhone MIT OpenCourseWare for iPhone CornellCast for iPhone Friend Atlas |
| Website | Irynsoft.com |
Irynsoft is a software and services company that is focused on mobile and web technologies. Irynsoft is based in the Bay Area of California and was established as an LLC in late 2009.
Irynsoft’s primary business is the provide a platform for educational institutions and companies to deliver content and social collaboration services on mobile devices. The platform (VIRT2GO) is an interactive mobile learning platform where you find and “attend” lectures & collaborate among a social network of peers, all within a rich smartphone interface. With VIRT2GO’s portability & community, students overcome the biggest hurdles that impede online educational success: finding the time and finding the help. [1]
Irynsoft has been cited as a one of the major players in the emergence of native platforms designed for the higher education market.[2] Given their approach to social learning through mobile devices, they were part of the Startl "Venture Capital in Education Showcase" as one the 10 education companies to watch. [3] In 2011, Irynsoft was named one of Fast Company's 10 Most Innovative Companies in Education. [4]
Irynsoft was selected to participate in the Kauffman Labs Education Ventures Program in 2011. As the program ended, they announced they would be offering affordable tablets to promote video learning and open courseware access.[5]
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According to Irynsoft, VIRT2GO is an interactive mobile learning platform where you find and "attend" lectures & collaborate on coursework among a social network of peers, all within a rich smartphone interface. With Virt U's portability and community, students overcome the most common hurdles that impede online educational success: finding the time and finding the help. Virt U's initial target is the iPhone, promoting learning anytime and anywhere. In addition, Virt U makes liberal use of Facebook Connect to leverage the social graph and making mobile learning a collaborative, social experience.
In September 2009, Irynsoft released an open courseware version of Virt U on the Apple iTunes App Store for no charge. Virt U debuted with 50 lectures and has gone up to over 500 lectures from schools such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and Yale. Irynsoft is continually adding courses and lectures to increase the breadth and depth of the selection.
This app brings a large subset of the lectures from Sal Khan's Khan Academy to the iPhone. It was offered for a small charge for several months before going free in September 2010, where it quickly gained popularity.[6] After planning to offer it free for a limited time, Irynsoft has made the free price permanent.
This app provides a dynamic environment for accessing MIT OpenCourseWare video lectures on the go. A collaboration between MIT OpenCourseWare and Irynsoft, this app uses Irynsoft's VIRT2GO platform to make viewing OCW lectures a social experience in which users can update and keep tabs on their Facebook friends, post to a forum, and leave ratings and reviews of individual videos. This app was cited as MIT OpenCourseWare's mobile app as part of Time's Top 50 Websites.[7] [8]
Friend Atlas looks through your iPhone Address Book and finds out which 10 people live closest to your location (using your GPS or Location Services). You can also input the address of where you plan to be so that you can plan ahead. Friend Atlas spent several weeks in the Navigation Apps Top 50 and crossed 10,000 downloads in the Fall of 2009. Friend Atlas was discontinued in May 2010 as Irynsoft now exclusively supports educational apps.