Turning hobby into a craze is the business for teen pair

TWO DUBLIN teenagers have turned a hobby into a business, developing their own e-learning software aimed at helping schoolchildren to improve their maths skills through fun educational applications.

Sixth-year students Andrew Gannon and Gavin Kenna are behind GA Learning, a firm that has developed “Maths Craze”. Aimed at children aged six and over, the computer game uses rewards such as mini-games to encourage children to answer questions correctly.

Software development has been a hobby of the 17-year-olds for some time. “Myself and Gavin used to always make little games ourselves, but we’d never fully finish a game. We’d move on to the next project,” Gannon said.

The pair started GA Learning while taking a business course with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) in October 2008. They were introduced to the course, which provides training in entrepreneurship education to young people, by their school, Killinarden Community School in Tallaght.

The company has already sold 250 copies of the software.

“There’s been a lot of interest. We’ve had a lot of people e-mailing us who have heard of us, asking if they can buy a copy of the game. They check it out, and talk to their friends; that’s one of our main forms of advertising, word of mouth,” said Gannon.

Customers include the local primary school and their own school, which uses it in its special needs assistance programme.

The game is selling at €6.99 a copy. Gannon said a conscious decision was made to keep the price low due to the recession.

Development of the second title, English Craze, is under way. The software is expected to be ready next year.

The teenagers are exploring the possibility of a download model for the software, and a demo version of the game. For more information, see http://www.galearning.110mb.com