#imagistory

[matthaworthart]

Imagistory: Our wordless Picture Book App, Imagistory is now available on the App Store! My two first books, The Tree Boat Book 1 (free download!) and the Backyard Adventure are up now, and a some more will be joining them shortly. If you have an iPad, please go ahead and try it out (it's free) or at least share it around as much as possible.  More on up and coming books soon!

http://www.imagistory.com/

[bizdojo]

Nick Barrett Competed for Hult Prize in Shanghai

Our Auckland resident Nick Barrett, founder of Imagistory, has returned from a busy trip to Shanghai. He was invited by AUT to be an alumnus member of the team representing New Zealand at the entrepreneurship competition, Hult Prize.

This year’s challenge was to come up with a scalable solution to the Global Food Crisis. Shanghai was one of five cities to hold the initial regional competitions. Regional winners will be invited to the next stages in the run that will finish off with a final global event in New York this September.

Each team had twelve minutes to present their development on how to overcome food issues in underprivileged areas. For Nick, two months worth of brainstorming with his team culminated this past weekend.

Nick and his team came up with an idea that utilized information sharing as a means to solve the food crisis in the slums. Their basis was that the right information can help make healthy and inexpensive food available in impoverished areas.

The idea was to place computer kiosks and information boards to display information about the price and location of food in the area to help people find the closest and cheapest options. Not only would these hubs make information available to the people in the slums but also influence the economy by forcing competition, and thus lowering overall food market prices.

Unfortunately, Nick’s team didn’t make it further in the competition but he felt that their solution would have been particularly easy to scale.

“Our team actually had many of the same ideas that the other teams, but we ended up going with this one because it was so easily scalable. Our idea could be applied virtually unaltered in slum areas all around the world,” Nick says.

Having taken part in many similar competitions while studying, Nick was an obvious choice for AUT as an alumnus member in the team. He’s dedication on making the world a better place reflects on everything he does from involvement with multiple non-profit organisations through to his startup, Imagistory -- an innovative children’s book publishing company. Learn more about Imagistory on our blog.

With such a strong focus on social entrepreneurship and with many future endeavors on the way, we know we will be doing another update on Nick soon!

[bizdojo]

Nick Barrett, Founder of Imagistory

More Nicks in the Dojo circle!? We're going to have to start calling them Nick Bar, Nick Bai, Nick S, Nick minut.. Nevermind. Anyway, this here is Nick Barrett, our new face around the Ironbank. He has based himself in the Auckland Dojo to work on his start-up, Imagistory.

“I feel fortunate to be able to kickstart my business with the connections and support from the Dojo community,” he says.

Nick graduated from AUT almost a year ago, with a first class honours degree in business, focusing on entrepreneurship and strategic management. After winning the Venture Fund at the end of 2011, he has spent the last year developing Imagistory.

Imagistory is a digital publishing company which creates wordless picture books for the iPad.

“The basic idea behind our books is that it’s the child’s turn to tell the story. By using their imagination, they make up the story from the pictures as they go. Kids will also be able to record, save, and share their stories.”

He got the idea for Imagistory when he was watching a 3-year-old family member reading a story to herself from a picture book.

“It occurred to me that since she couldn’t read, she was just making up the story by looking at the pictures. Although wordless picture books are not new, they are fairly uncommon. I would like to change that, because I believe that they are a great tool for developing creativity and early literacy skills.”

Nick is also in the only New Zealand team chosen to compete for the Hult Prize. He is representing AUT as the alumnus member of the team.

“This year we are tasked with solving the food crisis and to come up with a social enterprise which solves the issue of food security in slums throughout the world. We will be one of 38 other teams competing in Shanghai on the 1st and 2nd of March for a place in the final.”

The Hult Prize is a social entrepreneurship competition which challenges university students to tackle some of the biggest issues facing the world today. Each year more than 10,000 students apply to compete in one of six regional competitions, with the winning team from each region competing in the finals in New York later this year for $1 million to implement their idea.

Stay tuned: Imagistory is looking to have their first book ready for launch in the app store in the coming months...!