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Barclays Business “Take One Small Step” Press Release

Reference Tree’s “smarter learning” approach wins through to national competition finals

London-based entrepreneur Amil Tolia has been named as a regional finalist in The Barclays Business ‘Take One Small Step’ competition.

Amil Tolia, the CEO of the new UK based eTextbook Aggregator, Reference Tree (www.reference-tree.com), is proud to announce that Reference Tree has been named as one of three shortlisted companies in North London to win through to the regional finals of a national competition that aims to reward the ten freshest business ideas up and down the country with a prize of £50,000 to put towards future business growth.

Barclays Business ‘Take One Small Step’ competition has had over 3600 entrants country-wide and Reference Tree’s regional finalist success is already a significant achievement. Over the next month, Reference Tree will be put forward for the public vote via the competition’s own website at https://www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk.  If you would like to vote for Reference Tree, please use https://www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk/Entry/View/3355.  To vote by text, please send the word TREE to 87222.

Reference Tree is the exciting new resource that delivers electronic textbooks by the chapter.  Designed to address the changing dynamics of study and learning in today’s digital climate, the resource allows students to purchase just the portions of the textbook they require to efficiently complete their coursework.  The Reference Tree approach not only provides the opportunity for students to spread the cost of learning materials to fit in with individual budgets, but also access to the most up-to-date materials available, enhancing their learning potential as they strive to achieve the highest possible grades.  Other features include annotations and collaboration with trusted peers through sharing of notes and comments.

Due to launch in September 2010, Reference Tree has already attracted the interest of key publishers who will deliver their content through the resource in time for the 2010/2011 academic year.  This nomination further confirms the credence and status that the resource has already gained pre-launch and further cements its place as an authoritative future reference site for academic study.

Amil said: “I have always had a keen interest in education, and having been a student myself I know full well the great costs involved when purchasing study material. Reference Tree enables students to gain access to information in a concise and relevant manner, whilst focussing their spend on exactly the material they need.”

“Having started this business alone, I now have a team of people helping to build and maintain an efficient and resourceful online tool. In winning the competition, I would use the funds to further develop our product and expand our digital catalogue. At launch, our initial target is 85,000 students.  We are continuing to look at the most effective ways in which to feed students the required information and relevant excerpts of text. Our goal is to deliver a “smarter” way of learning”.

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For further information:

Amil Tolia                        Reference Tree        07786 262577

About Reference Tree

Reference Tree is a digital learning company focused on Higher Education. The Reference Tree service licences academic textbooks to students by the chapter, saving students money and providing a new distribution model for publishers.

About Barclays Business

Barclays Business is the business banking arm of Barclays. It has over 700,000 customers that are a mixture of start ups, sole traders, partnerships and limited companies.