We are excited to announce that today our CEO and Co-Founder, Osman Rashid, will be participating in a meeting with the FCC and U.S. Department of Education to discuss the advancement of digital textbook adoption for U.S. schools and universities. The meeting will be moderated by the Chairman, Julius Genachowski, of the Federal Communications Commission and Secretary, Arne Duncan, of the Department of Education, with participation from the CEOs of leading technology companies and textbook publishers. The topics to be discussed at the meeting this week include: state policies, affordability, content, connectivity, technology/devices and transitioning to success.

In February, FCC Chairman Genachowski and Secretary of Education Duncan hosted the first-ever Digital Learning Day Town Hall in D.C. and challenged states and the education and technology industries to get digital textbooks into the hands of all students in next five years (see http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-01-31/schools-e-textbooks/52907492/1).

At this event they identified barriers to adoption of digital textbooks, which include: antiquated state procurement rules, lack of device and content interoperability, and connectivity costs, and have since invited key constituents who are leaders in these areas to come to Washington and help solve this critical problem.

We are proud to be one of the leading technology companies chosen to participate in this momentous event and will keep you posted on more exciting news to come!

February 2012 wrapped up at Kno with an awesome weekend full of innovation and collaboration in education technology! Our headquarters hosted over 120 budding entrepreneurs and developers from February 24th through the 26th, for Startup Weekend EDU – a 54 hour event geared towards bringing participants from a diversity of backgrounds together in working towards a shared goal – advancements in the realm of education. Participants banded together in competing teams to work on various products and services aimed at solving contemporary problems in education. The event shed new light and an opportunity for people to hear one another’s ideas and perspectives on various education related problems, as well as offer guidance, experience and insight on this growing body from seasoned mentors and coaches.

The buzz of energy in the building was palpable and only intensified as the hour grew near for teams to present demos of their products, and attempt to exemplify why they would lead to solving problems facing the education sector. Although there was only one winner, MySciHi (a science based project enabling students and educators to live in a blended learning space), the event itself facilitated a new and continuing body of dialogue within the education technology community.

What do you think are currently the biggest hurdles to education and related technology? What other methods can we utilize to inspire a communal dialogue? Let’s face it, one weekend isn’t going to solve or provide answers to all the issues involved in education today, but we think it’s a legendary start!

Click here for all the exciting details on Startup Weekend’s happenings!

Does anyone really graduate in four years anymore?

Sure they do, but there’s also a whole slew of others who take five, or even six years in an attempt to not only obtain their education, but also balance extracurricular activities and sports, as well as financially support their endeavors. It appears to be a personal choice based on individual circumstances. Yet still, many universities across the country are offering incentives, highlighting the benefits, and some even penalizing students through raised tuition rates, all in an effort to process them through their institutions at a more efficient rate.

Universities offer several reasons for encouraging a traditional four-year graduation rate, ranging from less student debt accumulation, better chances of actually completing a degree, and improving their school’s ranking – since four-year graduation rates are increasingly becoming an important indicator of a university’s performance level. But plenty of students counter that overloading themselves with courses in order to graduate according to a specified time frame is definitely not worth the slip in grades, much less the increased stress level associated. And there are even others who are just not in a hurry to graduate, be it simply because they are enjoying the college experience, or are anxious about actually being able to find a job after graduation in these tough economic times.

What do you think about the push for a four-year college graduation? Since students are paying for every quarter or semester extra they remain enrolled, should it really be up to university officials and policy makers as to how long they end up taking? All this talk of numbers ponders the question, what ever happened to the old saying, quality over quantity?

In an effort to protest and raise awareness of two bills introduced by United States government representatives, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), popular websites like Wikipedia and approximately 7,000 other sites recently formed a united front in the form of a “blackout.”  The bills were said to have come about with the intention of finding a solution to the problem of online piracy, and protecting American intellectual property and innovation.  Doesn’t sound all that terrible…so why all the backlash?

Millions of people claim the legislation threatens free speech and innovation, and would allow our government to limit or block access to entire internet domains.  The outrage and demonstrations spread across the nation not only through website blackouts, but in the form of boycotts, rallies and petitions as well.  Censorship of the internet, in many people’s opinion, is a direct infringement of our 1^st Amendment rights.

The internet has definitely given society a form of freedom of expression at an unsurpassed level, making it easy to see why proposals like SOPA and PIPA caught so much flack from the general public.  The prospect of a censored or blocked world wide web certainly does not sound appealing.  But what then is the solution to protecting the rights of artists and innovators that do require some form of defense?  How much would the proposed monitoring and blocking of access to particular sites and content actually affect our ability to garner a well-rounded education on a given topic?  Is the cost worth the benefit?

Thousands of students across various campuses in the nation have assembled in demonstrations and protests against fee hikes, dwindling academic resources, and other concerns.  Most recently, news media have been inundated with stories of excessive police force used on students at the University of California in Davis last weekend.

The incident has sparked severe push back and criticism from students, alumni, faculty and others embroiled in the larger “Occupy” movement.  After all, the vast majority of protestors were students, engaged in a peaceful act of demonstration.  Nonetheless, police reaction has far from discouraged students at both UC Davis and nationwide to refrain from continuing in their goal for change.  If anything, it appears to have motivated them further.

The issues of rising tuition, increases in the cost of living, and a dwindling job market, have provoked outrage and a call for action among citizens both nationally as well as globally for quite some time now.  So…where is that change?

Our nation’s education system is the foundation for future growth and progress for the country as a whole.  Despite this reality, a resolution does not seem to be anywhere in sight, so it appears students are taking matters into their own hands through continued efforts of rallying and demanding their voices to be heard.

Ultimately, however, will these organized methods of protest work?  Or do they just add to the already complicated troubles our academic institutions are facing?  What are the best methods to achieve compromise and acceptable resolutions among all parties involved?

As an incoming freshman, we enter young, bright, and full of vigor for the endless opportunities that await. Some anticipate their success as future doctors, others see themselves as successful entrepreneurs and venture down avenues of majors like economics or marketing. There are also those who enter the realms of social sciences, eager to take on the world from dynamic new perspectives.

Where do students come up with the decision to pursue a particular major?

It’s a pretty hefty choice, and it seems important to decide on something that not only makes money (c’mon, there’s always that bottom line somewhere in the back of most people’s minds), but most importantly, makes us happy in the long run. Why? Because success ultimately derives its truest form of motivation out of passion – one of the only forces that can keep us going indefinitely on any given task.

Finding that passion can be a task in itself for many students, and even for those of us in the working world. While picking a major is a personal and individual process unique to each person, a general rule of thumb includes speaking with experts in any given field being considered. Try to acquire an internship if possible and see if the roles and duties assigned are actually a good fit in a practical sense. Sometimes things can seem exciting in theory, but turn out to be much different in reality. Many students also have a sense of responsibility to living up to parental expectations; not a bad thing, but also advice to take in stride with one’s own personal desires. After all, your major is just that – yours – so it ultimately should be something that not only brings you success in your eventual career, but also a sense of fulfillment and happiness.

What factors do you think are important when selecting a major in college? How much of an influence should parents, friends or colleagues have in your decision? How does education technology come into play when researching or learning about the vast array of career paths out there?

The recent mass store closings of beloved bookstore chains across the nation, like Borders, have sparked quite the array of reactions among avid readers and connoisseurs of the overall bookstore experience. Many not only enjoyed the stroll through aisles and aisles of literary works, but also made it a low key form of entertainment, curled up in a chair or perched on a seat sipping coffee and taking in their latest find.

Even the largest of retailers though, are not capable of maintaining the infinite inventory of literature out there without traveling the avenue of online stores and digital formats for e-readers. Coupled with a work-in-progress economic recovery, the demise of conglomerate literary vendors is unfortunately an impending process; or reality in the case of Borders – at least in a tangible, in-store experience version.

While I too felt the pull of some nostalgic strings when driving by my local Borders emblazoned with store closing signs, a place that supported endless hours of paper writing, college applications and the like, I also realized something: for books and bookstores – be it virtual or tangible inventory – to survive, they must keep up with the times and give readers a reason to keep coming back. In an era where we are more and more accustomed to having literally the world at our fingertips through online shopping, books surely have to traverse the same course.

Reading books is a historic tradition stemming from orated story-telling across generations. They invoke feelings of nostalgia at times, and can take the reader across the world and through epic journeys. Centuries ago, authors decided to transcribe tales of adventure and enterprise into written form with the technological advancements of writing tools and paper, followed by print media and mass distribution. We now find ourselves on the same cusp of an evolved form of age-old media, creating accessibility via a virtual arena to these same books and a whole plethora more.

With every other form of entertainment or creative work, there is the argument that it can be framed around a business venture turned multi-million dollar industry – i.e. record labels in the music industry for example. Books and the impetus for making a particular purchase of one, however, retain a different set of values. Students in particular, read textbooks for the knowledge they aspire to use to achieve a high grade in a class. Access to higher education and the subsequent knowledge attained has become incentivized more and more unfortunately by those providing it, and becoming a basis for astronomical profit – maybe one of the main reasons why our education system is falling behind.

The textbook is and will always be an essential tool to the process of education. At Kno we are trying to counter the effect of rising education costs – make that the cost of living in general – by revitalizing students through enhanced, but true to their core, textbooks. We want you to have the most complete, interactive and performance building experience possible by bringing the books you need right to a single screen. And our new 3D feature can bring your learning experience to life in a revolutionary new way!

Sure you may have to find a new spot to chill and sit back with a good book or study aid, but think about it this way – you can bring an entire bookstore with you to sit under the shade of a tree with a nice breeze and coffee to-go by your side, and invite some friends while you’re at it. Sounds like a new and improved low-key day to me.

What are the biggest benefits you seek to achieve when perusing though a textbook or even your favorite fiction novel? Do you think the digital era is effectively making educational tools, like Kno Textbooks for iPad, web and Facebook, more accessible, affordable and enjoyable? How can we help you achieve your goals even further?

Today, we are announcing several important products. Products that really begin to benefit the mash up of tablets, social networks, web technologies and digital textbooks. Using a rapid incremental development philosophy, we are able to deliver amazing functionality to students at an unprecedented pace.

Our first announcement is the beta release of Kno for Facebook and Web.

These two products are bringing a hundred thousand textbooks to 19 million students with a laptop, netbook, or even tablet. Not to mention, it’s where students are spending a majority of their time outside the classroom – 3 hours per day on Facebook alone.

While it may seem like a radical concept to bring textbooks to Facebook, we see a real shift occurring among students where learning is getting embedded with social aspects of their every day life. The problem however, is that social networks themselves have historically lacked a way for students to engage in learning and collaboration in a meaningful way- we hope to change that.

Our Facebook application is just the first phase of many important updates that will continue to extend learning deeply into social. Future updates will not only enhance the features of our textbook reader but will also bring core social learning features to Facebook. These updates will occur on a bi-monthly basis, starting with core features like search, highlighting, stickies, bookmarks.

Our second product announcement brings the most interactive set of features yet to our iPad application with the addition of Journal and Quiz Me. We believe, for the first time ever- our software has given eTextbooks an unparalleled advantage over physical textbook, by allowing students to extract information that’s most important to them seamlessly and instantly.

Remember how on the first day of class your textbook seems to be the most important collection of content for you, but as the semester progresses your notes take precedence over the textbook itself as your primary method for test preparation. Or how you spent hours creating flash cards, drawing diagrams in your notebook and creating new ways to study and remember information from within your textbook? Our features address these behaviors head on to accelerate learning into the 21st century. Can you still imagine making a call from a pay phone or calling a travel agent to book a flight cross state? Well, why should education suffer the same trappings of decrepit industries when education itself is the core foundation for our future.

It is an awesome time to be entrepreneurs in education and it’s even better if you’re a student at the receiving end! The rate of innovation happening in education is finally approaching the rate to create real progress in academic excellence. The generation gap between education and technology is quickly coming to a close and only fast moving start-ups will be able to keep pace and bring fundamental change to the market.

We hope you like the innovation we’re bringing to market.

— Osman, Babur and the entire Kno team!

Nothing in life is free. There are fees and costs associated with just about everything, and these days it seems like those expenses are only increasing more and more. That being understood, it still doesn’t make the rising cost of education for college students any less frustrating or difficult to manage. Public universities in the United States were once renowned for providing a top notch education at an affordable cost. My own father put himself through college by working part time at fast food joints like Taco Bell and Burger King.

Fast forward a few decades to the present situation – there has been a 12% increase in education costs for students in California, for example. The average yearly cost for a University of California  student is almost $30,000 a year. Sure that includes tuition fees, textbooks, rent, transportation, and food – but come on, close to $1500 a year just to have the books you need for a couple months for your classes…really?! It doesn’t make sense if you ask me – or the throngs of college students across the country that have held protests and rallies to voice their outrage.

Something is clearly wrong with this picture. On the one hand you have a budget deficit, on the other hand you’re shutting out thousands of students that can no longer afford education. When looking at the problem full circle it’s much more than just tuition that is creating increased costs. The cost of textbooks alone has increased at twice the rate of inflation for the past 20 years, housing costs have nearly doubled and the cost of food is no better.

What’s the solution then? Is there a solution? What would you propose be done to stem the hikes?

At Kno, we are on a mission to make learning more engaging, cost-effective, and fun. We believe that new education approaches combined with mobile and social technologies can help produce a breakthrough in learning outcomes. By changing the way students learn, we can improve test results and, more importantly, how much students truly know.

To achieve these goals, we have tried to re-imagine how people learn and how the higher education system creates and delivers content. All while providing students a much more powerful experience. To do this, we started with the textbook. Student’s and teachers are comfortable with textbook’s as the center point of education content. So our first product is Kno Textbooks for iPad.

In education technology, success occurs when people can comfortably try a new product that imitates their real world experiences, while gently opening them up to new possibilities that come from new technology- think of this like putting training wheels on a bike.

With Kno Textbooks for iPad our goal was to take the best features of a physical book and deliver it on this new platform. At the same time, we are introducing new capabilities that improve learning and begin to make the book more social by allowing students to ask questions, post comments, or share their location with a study buddy.

Once people begin to experience how great the digital textbook experience is, their willingness to break free from conventional learning methods and embrace new approaches will increase. This is where we believe an education breakthrough can happen. If a student sees that the digital textbook looks similar to the physical – but more interactive and cooler, there is a comfort level to try it out. Then they will discover the benefits of going digital. And only then can the big breakthroughs begin.

Our first version of Kno Textbooks for iPad creates this comfort connection of knowing that although the student has a digital enhanced version, on first pass it is similar to the book on the professor’s desk – just a lot cooler!

We have a lot more amazing things happening in our labs coming very soon. So send us your feedback and, in the meantime, we hope you love Kno Textbooks for iPad.

Stay tuned!