KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 (Bernama) -- Litespeed Education Technologies Bhd (LET), soon to be listed on the Mesdaq Market of Bursa Malaysia, expects to raise about RM16 million from its initial public offering (IPO).

LET, an e-learning system provider, will use the bulk of the proceeds for research and development (R&D) on new products and sales and marketing programmes for existing products over a three-year period.

According to its founder and chief executive officer, Pok Vic Tor, Malaysia is the best platform to launch its e-learning system due to the country's educational environment.

"Here, you have a mix of urban and rural in the educational environment that you will never find anywhere else. Our e-learning system suits the environment," Pok told Bernama.

LET, which moved from Singapore to set up its base here, achieved Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) status on August 11, 2004.

Pok said Malaysia was already beginning to establish itself as an educational hub in the region, offering some of the best learning institutions in Asia.

"Malaysia is quick to embrace the new methodologies that are available. It is moulding a society that is knowledge-driven with skills that match the demands of the changing business milieu," he said.

Pok said studies have shown that the traditional methods of teaching such as the classroom style required increasingly resilient attention spans from students, with minimum data retention.

"With the advent of the Internet, e-learning has alleviated the problem to a certain measure," he said.

Pok claimed that LET's e-learning system, which utilised its proprietary Diagnostic Tutorial Assessment System (DTAS) and Intelligent Content Assessment Marking System (ICAM), was revolutionary.

He said the system made use of artificial intelligence (AI), and the DTAS and ICAM engines allowed the tutors and the students a fair measure of interaction and yet provide enough technology to assist in cutting down the tutor's weighty chore of grading and correcting assignments.

Additionally, the system provided a comprehensive breakdown report on a student's performance and the areas that could do with improvement via features that offered immediate prompting for remedial action, he added.

According to Pok, the company has been successful with its e-learning products which employed its home-grown DTAS and ICAM technologies, such the English, Maths, Science and Chinese programmes under the Dr Series.

Hwang-DBS Securities Bhd is the underwriter, placement agent and sponsor for the listing of LET which is scheduled next month.

The company, which will launch its prospectus on Oct 27, is offering a public issue of 32.5 million new ordinary shares of 10 sen each at an issue price of 47 sen per share.

LET posted a higher net profit of RM6.291 million for its financial year ended April 30, 2005, compared to RM1.726 million in the same period of 2004.

Revenue also went up to RM16.044 million from RM11.233 million previously.

Under its expansion plan, the company expects revenue contribution of more than 60 percent from overseas operations in the next three years, Pok said.

LET has major customer bases in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, including 120 Singapore government schools, Hong Kong's Institute of Education Department and Malaysia's Education Ministry.

Pok said the company was developing a web portal and online curriculum for the ministry and he hoped that its e-learning system product and services would be deployed further within the next two years.

LET has Singapore-based wholly-owned subsidiary, Litespeed Education Pte Ltd, which is involved in providing education programmes.

It has collaborated with well-known names such as Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore) to produce e-learning content, National Institute of Education (Singapore), Hewlett-Packard (Singapore) and IBM (Malaysia).

-- BERNAMA