Archive for the ‘Achievements’ Category

Notion Learning alpha version released

Notion Learning; our easy to use, web based, powerful learning and training management system for businesses has just gone live in alpha.

As we had said back in October, it’s been very quiet on the blog because of the huge amount of development we’ve been doing in preperation for our first release. On Monday evening we deployed the alpha version (0.85) of Notion Learning. This is a huge milestone for us as it’s the first time the software is available on the Internet. Since Monday we’ve been doing a lot of testing to ensure that the application works in terms of performance – it’s vital that the application runs at a capable speed so it’s just as usable as a local, desktop application.

As well as that, we’re also revising the first version of the notion learning homepage. There is still a bit to go on that to really emphasise the benefits that Notion Learning brings to an organisation, but there’s a big difference between a big empty black screen (what was there before Monday) and what’s there now.

Currently we are in private alpha, which means that we are rolling it out ever so slowly to stakeholders and friends, for example, early adopters have already been into our system as student users, taking a course we’ve developed. Soon, those early adopters will be given invites so they can create full Notion Learning portal sites and create and manage e-learning themselves.

If you are interested in seeing more of Notion Learning, do get in touch – while it is a private alpha, we’re more than happy to show demos of the software.

The Techcrunch pitch

As previously mentioned, we pitched at the Techcrunch London event last Thursday. This was one of our first public pitches to industry – before that we’d only done it in university competitions (King’s College London & Imperial – winners at King’s and finalists at Imperial) so it was a really good experience. I wish we had more to show, in that our prototype isn’t ready yet so we didn’t feel comfortable showing work in progress screenshots.

We made some great contacts, and we’ve seen a few blog posts about the event where we’re mentioned (and here) so it’s nice to keep building traction as we get closer to putting up the beta. On twitter, @alanhammond made my day with this tweet:

First 6 pitches at #tclondon were interesting. A couple I would invest in if I had the money. Festbuzz and Notion Learning

Notion Learning has an office

Notion Learning won free office space from the London Knowledge Innovation Centre as part of their Southwark Tycoon boot camp they ran in June. We moved in at the start of September. They are running the competition once again, so take a look, it’s well worth it.

When bootstrapping/doing things on a shoe string, office space is often out of reach  so the benefits of somewhere to go and have a proper desk and internet etc. for both of us is huge. We’re very lucky to be here.

King’s College London Lion’s Den Competition 2009

Great news: The King’s College London graduate business plan competition we won this year is running again for the 2009/10 academic year in King’s. They’ve recently released information about this year’s competition and we can’t recommend it enough. The seminars, talks and workshops we attended were essential in the development of Notion Learning, and regardless of winning or losing it’s a huge benefit to anyone interested in business development. It’s also a lot of fun.

If you are entering, we’ll hopefully see you at the launch on the 21st of October.

Get all the details on the competition here.

Winning the King’s College London Lion’s Den competition

The Notion Learning idea was submitted and subsequently won the King’s College London Lion’s Den Business Competition (prize money of £5000 which we are using for support during start-up) on March 24th 2009. Here’s the press piece that appeared in the official King’s College London magazine. (Click on it for a larger version.)

The article is also available on the King’s College London web site.