ITG - a Jordan based technology group - has taken 1.2m Jordanian students one-step closer to its open source e-learning platform - EduWave. The Ministry of Education (MoE) along with the Integrated Technology Group (ITG) launched the second phase of the e-learning development process at the Queen Rania Center (QRC), by activating the entire internal network of the ministry (intranet) and assuring the dynamic information transfer across schools.
Students in any public school will soon be able freely browse the entire curricula online using EduWave, the e-learning platform by ITG, developed to form the base of an equal and comprehensive learning environment for approximately 1.2 million Jordanian students in more than 3,200 schools. This week, 1,230 schools in the Kingdom have been connected to the EduWave platform, and it is expected to have all 3,200 schools connected by year's end.
According to Waleed Tahabsem, CEO and President of ITG, EduWave is considered the number one K-12 e-learning platform in the world. "Developed entirely in Jordan by Jordanians, EduWave has managed to catch the attention of many of the big boys in Silicon Valley and around the world. EduWave's unique ability to connect up to 1.5 million students and teachers simultaneously sets us apart from the rest. He added "we are very excited by our achievements thus far with the Jordanian government and we hope to set a standard for other countries in the world."
EduWave was conceived in 1999, the same year that saw the first phase of the R&D aspect take form. The team behind the platform grew from four people in 1999 to forty-five at current levels - the software is now complete for marketing and its first deployment is taking place in Jordan. ITG Technology Manager, Hussein Katab, claims that EduWave is unique in many ways for its scalability and features. "Rather than your standard LMS (Learning Management System) and SIS (Student Information System), EduWave combines many features including collaboration tools, SIS (student profiles), personalization, email, document management, chat, broadcast features and scheduling in addition to rich text and multimedia capabilities to make it the most comprehensive e-learning suite available."
Other competing platforms offer several features, however the most scalable tool available at present handles up to 50,000 simultaneous users at the most and lacks the comprehensiveness of EduWave.
Since its inception in 1989, Integrated Technology Group (ITG) has been a leader in technological innovation and was the first Middle Eastern firm to develop and export electronic data interchange (EDI) solutions into the European market. Managing a steady growth and technological lead in the past thirteen years, ITG harnessed XML technology to develop the most comprehensive online Koranic resource in the world - AlTafsir.com In addition, ITG was the first Jordanian software company to develop and deploy an integrated, multilingual enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in 1995. Industry sources close to ITG have told MenaReport that the company has indeed reached a turning point in its history, and there are purported rumors of strategic investors entering the company in the next month or so. If true, this would be the second entry for a major IT player into the Kingdom, the first being in May 2002 when Microsoft and Foursan Group announced their investment (approx. $1m) and strategic endorsement of Estarta Solutions, a combination between two established international IT solutions leaders based in Jordan - Zeine Technological Applications and ONEWORLD Jordan. Estarta has recently won Qatar's e-government tender.