The suite of UK education products we’ve been designing and building, codenamed Ashdown, is also known as School Report Card.

I am extremely happy to say, today, that Ashdown is funded by an investment from 4iP/Channel 4. Read 4iP’s reasons for investing, and what TechCrunch Europe find interesting.

For us, it’s the ideal project: Ashdown has to be beautiful, inventive and mass-market. There’s the humanising of big data, with big information design and technical challenges. And it’s about citizenship. Giving people tools to know and understand more, to have agency in the world and to work together – as parents, teachers, pupils and government – to improve schools and society. These are all goals and qualities we care about deeply.

It’s an important moment for us, too, an opportunity for BERG to put its product and design instincts on the line. And, strategically, Ashdown is in an good space for us, sitting neatly between client services and our self-funded new product development. It brings good balance to the studio.

We love working with the folks at 4iP, and we’re totally looking forward to seeing where this takes us. It’s been full of great challenges already.

Check out our posts about Ashdown so far for a taste of our approach. More in the coming months!