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Qualcomm makes push into mobile education

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Qualcomm has purchased a Silicon Valley mobile education start up run by former California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in hopes of boosting the use of cellular technology in classrooms.

The San Diego company declined to say Wednesday how much it paid for EmpoweredU, which reportedly raised $15 million in seed funding from InterWest Partners and Granite Ventures to develop its mobile education software platform.

Poizner and other EmpoweredU employees have joined Qualcomm. In an interview, Poizner said the company’s software lets teachers and professors create and upload content to the cloud, which then can be tapped into by students via wireless devices. It also allows students to communicate with other students and instructors through the platform in what the company calls a 24/7 learning environment.

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“A lot of teachers are struggling with student engagement,” he said. “Students have this amazing relationship with their mobile device. So what a wonderful opportunity for teachers to utilize mobile devices to get students engaged, to use push notification to get them back involved with the material just like push notifications are used to get them involved with games and things.”

Founded in 2011, the company developed the platform working with more than 1,000 students at UCLA. It currently has pilot projects at several universities, including UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Clemson University and others.

While it has been focused on higher education, EmpoweredU will expand its efforts to K-12 education now that it has been purchased by Qualcomm.

Designed from scratch for a Bring-Your-Own-Device environment, EmpoweredU’s software currently works with Web browsers and devices running Apple’s iOS operating system. The company is almost finished with an Android version.

“Soon we’ll have technology where you might start with your iPad on the beach, move to your Samsung smartphone at Starbucks and then pick it up with your laptop in the dorm,” said Poizner. “Our technology supports all those devices with exactly the same user interface, and it is all synchronized so you pick up where you left off. Nothing like that exists in the marketplace today.”

To date, most of Qualcomm’s efforts in education have been mostly philanthropic through its Wireless Reach Initiative, the Qualcomm Foundation and donations of about $240 million to schools and universities, said Vicki Mealer, senior director of business development for Qualcomm Technologies.

The company is trying, however, to get more 4G LTE technology used in education. To date, most mobile devices in classrooms are Wi-Fi tablets.

There are 1.4 billion K-12 students worldwide, said Mealer. “That’s a pretty good-sized addressable market. Qualcomm has been very consistent in trying to create ecosystems to solve of some of these problems and get more innovation into schools.”