Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Located in Toronto, Quillsoft Ltd. is a leader in assistive technology software that helps people read and write. Founded by Dr. Fraser Shein in 2000, in partnership with Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Quillsoft's products, including WordQ, are used by over 2.5 million end-users, primarily in the education field. While WordQ, and other competing solutions primarily focus on writing, Quillsoft consistently hears from educators that students struggle with text comprehension. One of the most common complaints, from writing centres at colleges and universities, is that students cannot properly understand even relatively simple assignment questions. Teachers have consistently requested a true comprehension solution at the discourse level (e.g., understanding cause-and-effect, argumentation, etc.). Quillsoft sees a business opportunity in developing text comprehension technology and the company is planning to include such technology in the next generation of its products, scheduled for market release in 2022. Quillsoft is partnering with Seneca to build a proof-of-concept for a visualization tool that will provide readers with insight into multi-level relationships between concepts contained in long texts. Once fully developed, this new and unique text comprehension solution will enable Quillsoft to increase and diversify its revenue stream and increase market penetration.