Press Release

iRise® Visual Prototyping Platform Drives Innovation Speed-up on University Campuses as Visualization Adoption Grows

From American University's Kogod School of Business to NYU and Harvard, higher education is turning to visualization to teach state-of-the-art collaboration and how to create "insanely great" user interfaces for business software

EL SEGUNDO, CA — June 5, 2012 —Thanks to an innovative, far-ranging program to accelerate innovation on campuses and beyond, graduating students at more than two dozen schools—including Harvard, NYU, USC, and American University—are taking to their job hunts a skill that arms them equally well for entrepreneurship or work in some of the nation's most successful companies: iRise visual prototyping software competency. These talents give participating grads an edge when it comes to entrepreneurial rights of passage such as the elevator pitch and the funding presentation. And, according to a recent DICE.com report, iRise skills are increasingly in demand, sought after by a growing list of employers who use iRise—a lengthening roster that includes such household names as FedEx, AT&T, JPMC, ADP, IBM and Deloitte Consulting.

Under the iRise on Campus program, students majoring in business, IT or software-related fields use the iRise platform to create visual simulations—or "visualizations"—of their proposed software application ideas. In business classes, these visualizations are often used in pitches or other presentations similar to the ones used in business plans and funding proposals for venture capitalists. In other fields, such as software development and IT classes, these visualizations serve as working models of the projects being developed, replacing text-based descriptions like those commonly used in functional specifications in large enterprises.

"The visualizations really make these presentations come to life," says J. Alberto Espinosa, a professor of information technology at American University's Kogod School of Business who now requires the use of iRise in his MBA and undergraduate classes. Often in attendance in Espinosa's classes are representatives from the companies for whom students have developed their presentations, so both the business problems and the business stakeholders are from "the real world."

"It's amazing how real these apps look with minimal effort," says Espinosa. "Some of the external guests who attended a student proposal presentation about an application to handle the processing of immigration benefits—such as permanent residence status—thought that they were watching a real coded prototype."

Getting an edge in pitching and creating new apps
These ultra-realistic prototypes give students like Espinosa's a decided advantage when it comes to explaining and pitching their new app ideas, for systems ranging from iPhones to mainframes. "Our team used it when it was still optional in the MBA program, and it definitely gave us an edge in being able to show people exactly how the software would look and function," says Jared Guyer, a former student in one of Espinosa's classes who now works as a consultant at Deloitte Consulting.

But the "iRise edge" doesn't stop at creating dramatic pitches that sell. The iRise platform also helps students work out exactly how their applications should function—and craft great user interfaces—long before they go through the work of actually coding their idea, helping them to avoid blind alleys and dead ends in the creation of their apps. "It really made the concepts that we'd been learning come alive," says Guyer.

Another Kogod student at American University, Vivek Supnekar, says that his iRise experience helped him to quickly create visual prototypes for his project. "It is a great help to students," he says. "It helps us to see all of the things that we need to do to create a new application."

For those interested in pitching and developing their own apps, iRise Studio MX, a newly released free version of iRise that doesn't require programming to assemble visual prototypes of iPhone and iPad apps, is now generally available at irisemx.com.

About the iRise on Campus program
iRise on Campus is a progressive educational program that provides select undergraduate and graduate university programs with the opportunity to use cutting edge requirements visualization technology in computer science, human-computer interaction, IT and entrepreneurship courses. Using the iRise visualization solution in these courses provides students with practical experience that translates directly to the workplace and enables young innovators to express their ideas. Professors will have the ability to quickly present interface design concepts and demonstrate effective requirements elicitation. iRise provides targeted programs with licenses for all eligible students and instructors, a sample curriculum for visualization and a series of customizable workshops.

About the iRise platform
In a dramatic turnaround of the traditional software development process, iRise simulations effectively replace long, inscrutable text-based requirements documents. Stakeholders use iRise simulations to "kick the tires" on new applications—including mobile apps—and give feedback when it's still easy and cheap to make changes. Once everyone signs off on the simulations, iRise can even jump-start development by creating an initial code base for the user interface based on software development standards defined by the user, saving even more time and money.

Enterprise visualization software from iRise gives business and IT leaders a powerful way to visualize and fully experience business transformation. Forward-thinking organizations use iRise to drive the future of their business systems at light speed, accelerating time to revenue with lower cost and improved quality.

iRise is the only enterprise-grade, real-time collaborative software definition platform on the market today. With iRise, critical stakeholders can "test drive" and fully experience critical business systems early in the definition process, without any coding and up to ten times faster than with previous methods.

With thousands of projects completed successfully, the value of visualization has proven to be enormous for businesses in highly competitive markets, helping them to:

• Get to market twice as fast
• Eliminate 50% of project cost on typical projects
• Ensure the success of global sourcing strategies
• Dramatically improve quality and customer experience.

In addition to the iRise enterprise visualization platform, the company now offers iRise Studio MX, a free program that helps individuals and organizations quickly assemble new iPhone and iPad apps without programming. More information is available at irisemx.com.

About iRise
iRise is the world's leading provider of enterprise visualization software for business applications. Visualization has become a critical competitive advantage for businesses to more effectively communicate their needs to technology teams and give everyone involved the ability to interact with and fully experience applications before they are built. Companies of all sizes, such as General Motors, UPS, FedEx, Haworth, Manpower, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and hundreds of others, use iRise to "test drive" their applications before building, which accelerates time to market, improves customer experience, and drives cost down. At iRise, we believe that by 2020, all business software will be visualized before being built, the same way that every car, airplane, and building is visualized today. Headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., iRise is backed by Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, and Deutsche Bank, and has sales offices across North America and in London.

iRise is a registered trademark of iRise. All other companies and products mentioned are trademarks and property of their respective owners.