September 22, 2005 -– Startup company Cellpup, the only company dedicated to making educational software for cell phones, launched its Web site and debut line of language learning tools today. Cellpup (http://www.cellpup.com) takes advantage of the way young people use cell phones in their daily lives—between classes, on the bus, during brief windows of time—to help them memorize words, facts, and concepts.
“ Because puppies are smart, mobile, energetic, and learning all the time ”
Faster paced and broken into shorter activity segments, students’ lives are structured differently than they once were. The reality of students’ mobile lives lends itself to a different way of learning too, but learning applications have not kept pace. The few mobile learning applications that exist are built for business road warriors using higher-end platforms such as Palm OS or Windows CE—not for students and the cell phones they carry with them every day.
The idea for Cellpup came to Christopher Salemme, Co-founder of Cellpup in charge of management and technology, as he waited for a meeting to begin. Bored, and a student of Italian, he found himself wishing he could use the time to study his Italian vocabulary. He thought of his cell phone—a mini computer that can play games—and wondered why tools for learning couldn’t work on it as well. Cellpup (http://www.cellpup.com) was born. Mr. Salemme quickly built a prototype and enlisted the help of his friends to build a company.
“We met weekly around our dining room table, with our 17-month old twins on our laps—and on long walks with strollers through the East Bay hills,” said Rose Castorina, Co-Founder in charge of content and strategic partnerships. Through the development of Mr. Salemme’s prototype and subsequent iterations of Cellpup products, the Cellpup team developed a method for the systematic memorization of discrete bodies of knowledge.
Keys to the Cellpup concept, Ms. Castorina explained, are ease of use and entertainment value—both of which increase the likelihood of frequent exposure to new material—and thus its storage in long-term memory. The team began with languages, where repetition, ease, and frequency of study vastly increase success in vocabulary memorization. They are now extending this approach to other content domains such as test preparation, history, and chemistry. “The goal is to help a student to pick up her Spanish, SAT prep, or Chemistry wherever she is—standing in line, waiting for a bus, or in the back of her parent’s car,” said Jennifer Taylor, Co-founder in charge of marketing.
Why the name Cellpup? “Because puppies are smart, mobile, energetic, and learning all the time,” said Ms. Taylor.
About Cellpup
Cellpup is the only company dedicated to streamlined learning tools for cell phones—the next step in students’ mobile lives. A startup, Cellpup goes live September 22, 2005.
