The Army Research Institute has notified Kinection that it intends to fund our Phase II SBIR proposal to create a "Cultural Fluency Toolkit" for the Middle East. The Phase II proposal was a follow-on to the successful Phase I, which we completed in August.

The Toolkit will provide soldiers with teaching, learning, and reference tools to help them work more effectively in challenging cultural environments. We enjoyed the research process during Phase I, and are thrilled to have the chance to develop our ideas into a working solution.

Our team for the POST Report Writing game did ride-alongs with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department. The process was incredibly informative, and increased our immense respect for the work that peace officers do in our communities. Here's AJ, all smiles as he buckles in and prepares for the day.

If you've got an iPod, and you're studying a language, you know there's great potential there, but that existing materials often fall short. Through our partnership with the Naval Postgraduate School, Kinection is prototyping new approaches to using the mobile devices to sustain and enhance language skills for the Navy's professional linguists. We're starting with Chinese and Russian, and looking at ways to design audio files and interactive exercises to enhance learning.

The California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) has selected Kinection, through a competitive bid process, to design and develop a game-based solution to help officers improve their investigative report writing. The project will begin immediately, and continue through 2008. Our team is very excited to be working with POST on this important project... more details to come as the game develops.