ePals(TM) Announces Partnership With Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage to Offer Digital Cultural Exchange

ePals(TM) Announces Partnership With Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage to Offer Digital Cultural Exchange
  
 

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - Feb 20, 2014) - ePals Corporation (TSX-VENTURE: SLN), an education media and social learning company, today announces a partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, part of the world's largest museum and research complex. The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, which is launching this effort in conjunction with the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, will license the ePals Global Community and support the development of a virtual, global exchange for K-12 students celebrating the culture of the People's Republic of China.

"A partnership with ePals extends our ability to reach students and educators significantly," said Michael Atwood Mason, director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. "The ePals companion program will bring the culture of China, and educational tools developed at the Folklife Festival, to K-12 classrooms around the world, a new area of focus for us." 

"We are excited to harness ePals' collaborative media experiences and our global network of students and teachers to expand the Smithsonian's remarkable work to highlight Chinese culture through its Festival," said Katya Andresen, CEO of ePals. "This is a powerful example of how ePals can support partners and sponsors with our content, platform and presence in China to spark learning in classrooms and homes worldwide."

The 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival features the program China: Tradition and the Art of Living, as well as a program on Kenya, and will be held June 25 through June 29 and July 2 through July 6 outdoors on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Festival, inaugurated in 1967, celebrates traditional culture with people from across the United States and around the world. The companion program powered by ePals will provide students and teachers a collaborative environment so that children can serve as junior curators, sharing insights and learning about the culture of China.

The agreement with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage builds on existing partnerships between ePals and the Smithsonian, facilitated by the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access. In January 2014, ePals launched the third annual Spark!Lab Invent It Challenge with the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. This global challenge honors K-12 student winners whose creative inventions best demonstrate the Spark!Lab process of invention, with a patent filing and Camp Invention scholarship among the prizes.

About Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is dedicated to the collaborative research, presentation, preservation, conservation and continuity of traditional knowledge and artistry with diverse contemporary cultural communities in the United States and around the world. The center produces the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Folkways Recordings, maintains and makes accessible the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, produces extensive research and educational materials, and promotes cultural heritage policy for the benefit of communities around the world. For more information about the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, visit Folklife.si.edu.

About ePals Corporation

ePals Corporation (TSX-VENTURE: SLN) is an education media company and Global Learning Network. Focused on the K-12 market, ePals offers school administrators, teachers, students and parents worldwide trusted content, interactive learning experiences, and a collaborative learning community. ePals' award-winning products include: popular children's educational publishing brands from toddlers to teens, including Cricket® and Cobblestone®; the ePals Global Community®; and In2Books®, a Common Core eMentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills. ePals also offers a content-licensing, clearance and production service for education publishers. ePals serves approximately one million classrooms and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in over 200 countries and territories. Product websites include: www.ePals.com; www.Cricketmag.com; and In2Books.com.

Contacts: Katya Andresen Chief Executive Officer ePals Corporation Phone: [phone] Twitter: @katyaandresen Cory Pala Investor Relations E.vestor Phone: [phone] [e-mail]