CUIP press release to launch Spin-off CU FutureBooks

The new spin-off company of Charles University is building the foundations of humanitarian transfer and will change the shape of modern education.

27. September 2022 – Faculty of Education of Charles University with the help of the subsidiary Charles University Innovations Prague a.s. (CUIP) launches an innovative publication system that changes the shape of modern teaching. It is called FutureBooks and it is one of the first purely humanitarian spin-offs in the Czech Republic. The publication system fully responds to the needs of the digital age and targets everyone who is part of the university grounds. From a number of functions, it enables everything from the creation of teaching materials and publications to their internet sale.

Through the FutureBooks platform, it is possible to create, edit, and sell so-called interactive learning media. This will enable all users from the academic world to participate more easily and at the same time as actively as possible in the learning process. It targets both students, who thanks to FutureBooks will get the opportunity to manage their teaching materials, and teachers and academic institutions themselves, for whom this platform will enable a wide range of actions from the collaborative creation of publications to their distribution through their own e-shop.

"On behalf of Charles University, I think I can say that FutureBooks is an innovative tool for the academic world that reflects the needs of the digital age to the maximum extent and, thanks to its interactivity, enables everyone on campus to become part of the learning process. Whether it's students, teachers, or academic institutions," states the rector of Charles University, prof. Milena Králíčková.

“We are very pleased that, with the help of CUIP, we have managed to bring FutureBooks to its final form, which can make life easier for almost everyone who is part of an academic institution - from students who put new demands on us and encourage us from technological development to teachers and scientists, who will be provided with a space for clear storage and easy publication of their work," welcomed the dean of the Faculty of Education of the Charles University, prof. Michal Nedělka.

The very uniqueness of IVM stems, as the name suggests, from their interactivity. This key feature is intended to ensure the immediate participation of the user in the learning process, thus helping to mediate a better understanding of the world than just a theoretical abstraction. These are components such as graphs, 3D models or pop-up windows and an overall responsive design that transforms ordinary scripts, as well as simple electronic text, into material that engages and interests students as much as possible. In addition, other content such as video streams, images or music can be inserted into FutureBooks, which the target readers will be able to view either through the web, progressive web applications available for all platforms, or through hybrid applications for the Android and iOS platforms.< /p>

Igor Červený, head of the distance education support department, who participated in the development of the system, says: "We have been developing the FutureBooks system at the Faculty of Education in cooperation with the private sector for the fifth year. I personally consider the main benefit to be the intuitive control of the system itself, and above all the implementation of its interactive elements, which we use to activate our university students as well as primary and secondary school pupils as part of educational projects financed mainly from the ESF funds of the Ministry of Education and Culture. >

Who is FutureBooks for?

FutureBooks is primarily aimed at academia and the professional public, but the access setting is entirely up to the authors of the publications. Secondary, however, it will also serve as a suitable tool for publishers or teachers at secondary schools. If, for example, the teacher uses another library for his own business purposes in addition to the library with material for students, it depends entirely on the author how the publications are arranged in the libraries and who gets access to them. A myriad of libraries can be created and categorized according to the author's requirements. FutureBooks will also provide teachers with, for example, a clear tool in the form of statistics on viewing individual books and publications by readers. If the author decides to make the publication available to the public, he can upload it in a locked version to the e-shop, where the reader can purchase it. IVM will also greatly facilitate the process of publishing a physical book, as it will be displayed to the publisher directly in the required format.

Chairman of the board of Charles University Innovations Prague, Otomar Sláma, acknowledges: "We are very pleased to have been able to participate in the establishment of a spin-off company for FutureBooks, which we hope will offer the entire platform a horizon of opportunities for further development and functioning in the future. We were particularly impressed by the direction in which the Faculty of Education of the UK decided to go and that it was not afraid to target every actor in the academic world with this innovation. It is a beautiful example of the fact that at a university with a 700-year-old tradition, there really are many efforts not to get bogged down in one place." 

The parameters of the interactive learning media of the FutureBooks system also meet the required "Quality criteria for digital educational resources supported by public budgets" according to the provisions of the Ministry of Education and Culture. For this reason, interested parties can use public national and European grants and subsidies when creating their teaching aids (scripts, exercise books, textbooks). The Deputy Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Václav Velčovský therefore adds: "The prominent Argentinian writer Borges once said that he imagined paradise as a large library. That paradise has changed significantly for us due to the proliferation of information. Added to this is the information paradox – the more information we have, the less we use it. However, the role of the school and the general importance of education for the building of civil society were understandably preserved. I am very happy that Charles University, with the contribution of funds from EU funds, contributes to the fact that all information revolutions and digital transitions have preserved the most important thing at the center of all processes - the person and his teacher."

“For Prague and the Prague Innovation Institute, the development of innovative projects in education is key. It is the basis of the transition to a knowledge-based and sustainable economy. The Prague Innovation Institute has already collaborated with Charles University on the successful Smart Food educational project, and we are very happy that we can thus support the creation of a culture of spin-offs and the transfer of academic knowledge into practice in general," concludes the innovation manager of Prague, Tomáš Lapáček from the Prague Innovation Institute. institute.

More about FutureBooks: futurebooks.cz

FOR MEDIA

M.Sc. Lucie BUDINOVÁ
PR senior
 +420 723 309 712
budinova@cuip.cz

Charles University

Charles University was founded in 1348 and is one of the oldest universities in the world. It currently has 17 faculties (14 in Prague, 2 in Hradec Králové and 1 in Pilsen), 4 university institutes, 5 other workplaces for educational, scientific, research, development and other creative activities and workplaces for the provision of information services, 5 university-wide purpose-built facilities and the rector's office as the executive workplace of the management of the UK. The university is the most efficient scientific institution in the Czech Republic, as shown, for example, by the evaluation of scientific outputs by the Council for Research, Development and Innovation. The university has over 8,000 employees, including more than 4,600 academic and research staff. More than 48,000 students study at the Charles University, which is roughly one-sixth of all students in the Czech Republic, who study in more than 300 accredited study programs with more than 600 fields of study. Approximately 8,000 students graduate from the university annually. Charles University is among the five European universities that enjoy the greatest interest of foreign students within the Erasmus program. According to the Reflex 2013–2014 survey of the Faculty of Education of the Charles University, graduates of the Charles University show the lowest long-term unemployment rate among public higher education institutions. The financial evaluation of CU graduates on the labor market is among the highest.

More at: https://www.cuni.cz 

Charles University Innovations Prague a.s.

CUIP is a UK company founded in June 2018. It is an organization for research and dissemination of knowledge, the purpose of which is mainly to ensure the dissemination of results created on academic grounds and to ensure the usability of intellectual property in the field of research and development and its use for commercial, industrial and similar purposes, i.e. their commercialization. CUIP may enter into spin-off companies for the commercial use of UK intellectual property. CUIP has already established many spin-off companies, among which are - Charles Games s.r.o., which develops and sells computer games, LAM-X a.s. dealing with nanomaterials with the ability to actively defend against a wide range of pathogens, GeneSpector s.r.o., which is the most profitable academic spin-off company in the Czech Republic, or GeneSpector Innovations s.r.o., which has just entered the American market.

More at: https://www.cuip.cz 

Faculty of Pedagogy of Charles University

The Faculty of Pedagogy of Charles University was established in November 1946 and represented the culmination of long-term efforts to train teachers of all levels on a university, university basis. Today, the Faculty of Education is one of the seventeen faculties of Charles University and its task is to prepare teachers for all types and levels of schools, to prepare experts and scientific workers in pedagogy, educational psychology and didactics of various fields.

More at: https://www.pedf.cuni.cz