Information on the Industry Background section in the Technical Narrative
In the Industry Background section, you'll need to give HMRC a brief description of the industry your company operates in, and the evolution of your product. You'll need to describe the following:
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The industry your company operates in
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Relevant information about the industry
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The size of the industry
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The opportunity you discovered and how you discovered it
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How you have tried to solve this problem
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What was achieved in the period this Technical Narrative covers
Full Example for Industry Background
What are the products/ processes that are unique to your company and do not exist in the industry in the same form?
We’re proud to say that, so far as we’ve seen, what we’ve developed, and our product offering, is totally unique. We’ve not come across any other company, worldwide, offering a platform that facilitates personalised educational games.
Most education technology startups today using games to enhance learning experience, don’t actually match their own unique learning strategy and style.
Learning methods have advanced significantly in the past decade. At present technology provides numerous ways of enhancing learning experience and thus plays a pivotal role in modern education. Due to the diversity and effectiveness of physical technology and software, around 3 out of 4 teachers say that educational technology allows them to reinforce and expand on content and motivate students. More importantly, the same fraction of students confirms that technology helps them achieve better learning outcomes. Moreover, technology is predicted to become an even more integral part of education, for example, making use of digitized classrooms, virtual teaching methods, virtual reality studios, etc.
What are the opportunities you see in your industry for the product/ process that you are developing? What does the industry lack that your product will address?
A key component of education technology is educational games. A recent research study from New York University has proven that in general, games improve learning skills, motivate learners with goals and achievements, and keep them engaged in the subject. Statistics show that currently 97% of youth play computer games, which means that educating through games is a smart way to keep learners interested. In future, the popularity of educational games is expected to grow even more. According to Ambient Insights, global revenues of all game‐based and simulation‐based learning products topped $5.7 billion in 2014 alone and are projected to grow to $13.2 billion by 2019.
Nevertheless, the optimum learning environment for each student is one which matches their own unique learning strategy and style. Traditionally, environments which provide tools for effective personalised learning are considered to be difficult to implement due to resource constraints and high complexity of algorithms.
Company New Games undertook this challenge and created a platform that facilitates a personalised learning environment for students, providing a conversational agent and a suite of analytics tools.
If you are planning to expand into other market segments, please describe here your plans.
Our plan is to use the knowledge and experience we have acquired with students, and to expand to the employment sector. We believe that using educational games may improve the engagements in work courses for employees.