MOBILIZE 08, SAN FRANCISCO, CA – September 18, 2008 – Squace, creator of the free application that makes surfing, searching and sharing Internet content possible on ordinary mobile phones without typing, today announced it won a contract from Vinnova, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, www.vinnova.se, to connect Stockholm day care administrators, teachers and families using the mobile Web.
Eighteen day care centers in Stockholm serving approximately 300 children and their families will be brought online in September. During Phase I of the measured rollout, 60 teachers will use Squace’s free mobile Web application to keep parents up to date. Parents will use Squace to get contact information for the families in their child’s class, scheduling, and school news.
“Managing your child’s ever-changing school schedule can be an exercise in controlled chaos,” said Aage Reerslev, Squace founder and CEO. “Even though parents may be at a computer during much of their work day the time that they need the school-related information most is when they’re on the run – when they’re in the car or on the train. With Squace they now have fast and easy access to their child’s class and school sites from their phones, any time, anywhere.”
How Squace works
Squace is a free mobile phone application for people who rely on the Internet as their primary source for news, information and entertainment, and want real-time Web content anytime, anywhere – not just when they’re sitting at their computer. The free software features a uniquely phone-friendly interface that can be continually updated and personalized so the user is always able get to exactly what they want and care about most on the Web.
Squace divides the mobile phone’s screen into a grid of small squares. Each square is linked in alphabetical order to a Web service or content provider such as a newsfeed, Web site, game or widget. As the user moves the cursor over the grid, pop-ups appear revealing the connected content. When the user finds the link they’re looking for, a single click opens the content in a format that is readable and useful on a small screen.
Vinnova project
Under the Vinnova contract each class in the 18 Phase I centers received its own home page that can be managed from any PC. Day care center staffs have been tasked with populating the pages with useful information and content, such as contact details of all parents and teachers, a picture of each child, and scheduled activities for every day and week.
Invitations have been sent from the site directly to the mobile phone of every administrator, teacher and parent. Following easy to use instructions, users are now activating their Squace accounts to have access to the sites from their handsets.
“Parents and staff now have instant access to school calendars, any schedule changes, curriculum updates, after school care and activities, emergency information and much more right on their mobile phones,” said Mehradad Ghaffar, manager of the Nockby Day Care Center of Stockholm, the first school to test the Squace application in the Spring. “We’re already seeing big benefits.”
Funded by Vinnova, which is chartered to conduct Information Technology projects that enhance people’s daily lives, the day care center project is being administered for the Stockholm municipality by a consortium comprising Squace, the 18 schools, and The Research Institute, part of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, which was tasked with studying usage and the proliferation of the Squace mobile Web application.
About Squace
Squace is a free mobile phone application for people who want fast, easy access to real-time Internet content anytime, anywhere.
Squace gives users a uniquely phone-friendly, intuitive interface that makes surfing, searching and sharing Internet content possible on ordinary mobile phones without typing. Users can continually update and personalize their links so they can always get to what they want and care about most.
For content providers and advertisers who want to use mobile phones to connect and interact with their Internet customers Squace provides a network-independent, open mobile platform for creating mobile sites in minutes and full-blown mobile services in just a few hours.
Go mobile! Download Squace today at http://www.squace.com.
Contact:
Leigh Anne Varney
+1 415 387 7250
la[at]varneybusiness.com
