IF things had turned out differently, Benson Loo might still be a salaried employee at a defence technology statutory board in Singapore.

Instead, his entrepreneurial instincts have led him to found EyePower Games, an educational technology company headquartered in Singapore, with his partners Randy Ang, Thanh Hai Pham and Grant Riggle, in 2004.

EyePower specialises in augmented reality (AR)-enhanced teaching and learning tools. Its flagship applications, Newsmaker and Moo-O, have been lauded by educators from Asia to the United States.

These applications are based on the company's advanced video effects technology, which has also been licensed to tech giants such as Creative and Dell for their webcams as well as Wacom for its tablets.

Ironically, Mr Loo, EyePower's Chief Executive Officer, was not all that convinced about AR as a viable technology at first.

He recounted: "Grant had bought head and eye gear and downloaded software for some experimentation. I wasn't impressed as I thought the setup was too cumbersome. Then Hai showed us a video of a Sony vice president playing with AR. The demo was so well done that we were all won over."

Like many start-ups, the company faced numerous challenges during its early days. Finances were a constant concern. Mr Loo credits the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) for supporting EyePower during that period.

"MDA helped us a great deal. Without its support, we would not even be here today. Some of the funding we got (from the Digital Content Development Scheme) allowed us to do research and development and fine-tune the technologies that can be found in all our products today," said Mr Loo.

MDA also recommended EyePower to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, which provided partial funding for NewsMaker, its first educational product. Mr Loo was inspired to design NewsMaker during a visit to Newseum, an interactive news museum in Virginia in the US.

NewsMaker allows students to take on the roles of news anchors and producers to write, read, record and publish news bulletins. With this tool, students are able to practise their communication skills while mastering content in any subject area. The program uses AR technology to let students overlay visual effects on the videos.

When NewsMaker was rolled out in the US, it was so well received that Learning magazine awarded it the Teachers' Choice Award, a prize judged by a panel of teachers across the country. Its success opened the eyes of EyePower's founders to the potential of the educational technology market.

The company followed up in 2009 with its second software, Moo-O, which employs AR to enable students to be filmed as story characters. The program also enjoyed immediate success, winning Tech & Learning magazine's Award of Excellence that same year, along with NewsMaker.

"There are many educational needs that our technology could help meet, especially in the area of language instruction. This is the case everywhere I have been, even in the US," said Mr Loo.

As a non-native speaker of English, Mr Loo found it tough selling English-language tools in the US. A strategic partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) was struck in 2009, which lent credibility to the company in the eyes of US educators.

Mr Loo said: "The partnership with ASU has allowed us to anchor ourselves and explore opportunities in the US. At a recent state educational conference in Louisiana, teachers from different schools shared about their use of our products, and many told us how great they are. Nothing made us prouder than this."

The economic downturn has caused education budgets to be slashed, especially in the US where EyePower is trying to consolidate and expand its business. However, the company plans to be at it for the long haul and views its current activities as building for the future. Just recently, it participated in the British Educational Training and Technology Show (BETT) in an effort to reach out to European customers as well.

Mr Loo said: "There are now 10 of us, including a small team of three in Ho Chi Minh City. I have a vision to grow EyePower into a global brand in education, and we are actively looking for investors right now to help us grow exponentially and fulfil this vision."