Tech firm wins royal gong for second year

STAFF from Inclusive Technology which has won a Queen's Award for the second year running

DELPH firm Inclusive Technology has won the elite business accolade the Queen's Award for the second year running.

The global firm that develops assistive technology for learners with special educational needs has received a 2017 Queen's Award for Enterprise Innovation following its Queen's Award for International Trade in 2016.

The company is one of just seven in Britain to win both the International Trade and the Innovation Award in two years.

Their ChooseIt! Maker 3 (CM3) software scooped the honour in the competition which is recognised as the highest award in British business.

CM3 is an online classroom resource for learners with special or additional educational needs.

It allows teachers to create activities, personalised for an individual child or teaching group.

The Inclusive Technology team will be guests of the Queen at a reception at Buckingham Palace in the summer.

The Queen's representative, a Lord Lieutenant, will present a 'grant of appointment' and a crystal bowl to the firm.

Martin Littler, executive chairman of Inclusive Technology and a former Oldham Businessman of Year winner, said: "I'm so delighted to receive a second successive Queen's Award. It's a great reward for our animators, graphic artists and coders as well as our specialist education and speech therapy staff - indeed the whole team.

"ChooseIt! Maker 3 enables kids to make choices fundamental to independence, communication, learning - everything."

The firm, of Riverside Court in Huddersfield Road, was founded by three teachers as part of Ocean Software in 1996.

The three staged a management buy-out in 1998 and set up Inclusive Technology Ltd.

Inclusive supplies communication and learning technology to special education and health clients.

It has a world lead in accessible software for learners with complex learning difficulties.

CM3 allows teachers to create a personalised activity to which they can add images, take photos, record sounds, draw or paint.

It has a built-in searchable media library with 30,000 pictures allowing the creation of curriculum activities in minutes.

Every CM3 activity automatically records each learner's achievements.

Results can be saved and shared with the learner's parents.

Once created the activity can be used on the classroom computer or published as an app.

To date 97,000 activities have been created. Each can be shared freely with classmates.

Inclusive was also responsible for developing EyeGaze which allows a person to look at a computer screen, controlling the mouse cursor with eye movement and blinks.