Our Journey
From flashcards to intelligent adaptive learning
Renkara Media Group was founded in 2008 — the same year Apple launched the App Store. What began as a single flashcard app built in a house in Chicago has grown over eighteen years into an AI and machine learning company with 27 patent filings, a proprietary adaptive learning engine, and products used by millions. This is the story of how we got here.
Apple Announces iPhone SDK and App Store
Apple announced in February 2008 that an officially-supported SDK would be released, allowing third-party developers to build native iPhone applications for the first time. A new App Store would serve as the distribution channel. Professional developer and language enthusiast Charles Sieg watched the announcement and decided to build an app.
He had no experience with Objective-C at the time.
Launch
Vacation Inspiration
During a vacation trip to Cancun, Charles conceived the idea for a digital flashcard application. He had been carrying a huge stack of physical index cards on his consulting commute in downtown Chicago, using them to learn Turkish. He envisioned replacing the stack with a program on the iPhone.
IP
Development Begins
Development of the language software commenced in April 2008. The first iPhone SDK lacked Interface Builder, so all UI components were created entirely in code. Debugging support was minimal and Charles could only test on a physical device very late in the development cycle. He worked his full-time consulting job by day and built the app at nights.
Naming and Trademark
The name AccelaStudy came from a discussion with a cousin. A trademark application was filed. Renkara Media Group was established as the company entity.
IPFirst WWDC
Charles attended Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco to learn the finer points of iPhone development and prepare AccelaStudy for the App Store launch just weeks away.
App Store Launch; First Language Learning App
When the App Store opened on July 10, 2008, Renkara Media Group submitted 6 versions of AccelaStudy — Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Turkish — at $14.99 each. AccelaStudy was the very first language learning app in the App Store.
Launch
Product Line Expansion
By year's end, Renkara added GRE®/GMAT™ Vocabulary Builder to the lineup and expanded each language application's vocabulary to over 2,000 words. Audio pronunciations recorded by professional voiceover artists were added — including the same artist Mercedes used for their German television commercials. All language content was translated by professors at Brigham Young University.
Chuckisms: Chuck Norris 'Fact' Generator
Renkara released Chuckisms, a humor app that generated random Chuck Norris “facts” in the style of the popular internet meme. The app was available in the iTunes Store by December 2008. However, on December 4, 2008, the law firm Patton Boggs LLP sent a cease-and-desist letter on behalf of Chuck Norris, alleging the app infringed on his intellectual property rights. The app was subsequently pulled from the store — an early lesson in celebrity IP. The framed cease-and-desist letter is now prized wall decor in Charles' office.
The Factual Intellectual and iComedian
By mid-2009, Renkara's product catalog had expanded beyond language learning. Trivia for the Factual Intellectual™, Curious Facts for the Factual Intellectual™, and iComedian™ were knowledge-focused apps that tested users on general knowledge, presented interesting facts, and delivered jokes. All three generated ad revenue and were maintained through early 2012 before being discontinued as Renkara refocused on its core education products.
Spaced Repetition and Translate Now
AccelaStudy version 1.4 introduced the first implementation of spaced repetition, a scientifically-backed learning technique for optimizing review intervals. This was Renkara's first step toward the adaptive learning platform that would eventually become AVIAN — the idea that software should decide what to study and when, not the learner. Renkara also released Translate Now!, a language translation app that served primarily as a promotional vehicle to advertise AccelaStudy products to translation app users.
Launch
Flashcard Champion® Featured by Apple (#1 Paid Education App)
Flashcard Champion®, Renkara's math learning app, was featured by Apple in the App Store and reached the #1 position in the Paid Education category in January 2010. On January 10, 2010, Renkara hit a new daily sales record of approximately $2,420, driven in large part by the feature. Flashcard Champion would later be rebranded under the Powered by AccelaStudy concept in 2013, and received ongoing updates including iPad Retina artwork and iPhone 5 support in 2012.
Milestone
Contig Released for iPad; Arabic, Hebrew, and iPad Support for AccelaStudy
Contig, a strategy number game where players are given 4 numbers and must combine them to make 24, was released for iPad in 2010. User feedback praised its design as “very beautiful” with a “very iPhone-like” interface. Separately, AccelaStudy expanded to include Arabic and Hebrew language versions and gained an iPad-specific UI.
Launch
iPhraseBook® Launch (iPad App of the Week)
iPhraseBook®, a phrase-based language reference app built with content licensed from HarperCollins®, was launched in April 2011 and was selected by Apple as iPad App of the Week globally. This was a major marketing milestone, demonstrating Apple's recognition of Renkara's product quality. The iPhone version of AccelaStudy was subsequently redesigned to incorporate the more attractive visual elements from the iPad UI.
Launch
KanjiPictoGraphix Developed and Launched
KanjiPictoGraphix, a kanji learning app for iPad and iPhone, was developed in partnership with Michael Rowley, author of the acclaimed Kanji Pict-O-Graphix books that teach Japanese kanji through memorable visual mnemonics. The app brought Rowley's acclaimed pictographic approach to mobile, featuring stroke diagrams, vocabulary, element filtering, and grade-based organization (Grades 1-6) aligned with Japanese kanji proficiency levels, with themed collections (Dragon, Dog, Bird). Development ran from early 2011 through summer with the app launching in early January 2012.
Launch
Hess Energy App for Fino Consulting
Renkara built a native iPad energy trading app for Hess® Corporation through Fino Consulting. Real-time pricing, push notifications, offline support, and contract generation. The app won a CIO 100 innovation award for Hess.
Tools
Consulting Expansion
By mid-2011, Renkara had successfully delivered over 300 apps to the App Store with over 5 million downloads. Renkara's client work included white-labeling for brands like Levi's, the Oprah Winfrey Show, Victoria's Secret, and Douglas Laboratories through clients like Citizen Global and Fino Consulting.
Milestone
Cloud Sync!
The most transformative year for AccelaStudy. First, all applications became cloud-enabled, allowing progress to sync between iPhone and iPad via the Renkara Cloud. Charles began developing an innovative new algorithm, similar to but improving upon spaced repetition, designed to further accelerate learning and retention. This algorithm was initially intended to be patented as Optimized Study Method for Accelerated Memory Consolidation. Deciding not to pursue a patent at this time, the algorithm was merged into Renkara's language applications by late 2012. Work was also underway on AccelaStudy 2.3 with iPad Retina support, localization into Chinese and other languages, and new vocabulary products.
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AccelaStudy Cloud Generation 1 Launches (Parse)
The first AccelaStudy Cloud shipped alongside AccelaStudy v2.4, built on Parse (Facebook's recently acquired Backend-as-a-Service). The cloud enabled cross-device progress sync between iPhone and iPad and social authentication via Facebook and Twitter. AccelaStudy was also featured in Apple's Chinese television commercial introducing the iPad. By year's end, over 10 million users had downloaded an AccelaStudy-powered app and over 1 million had created Renkara Cloud accounts.
15 Million Downloads, 5 Million Cloud Accounts
AccelaStudy-powered applications surpassed 15 million downloads worldwide. Over 5 million users had created Renkara Cloud accounts to sync their learning progress across devices. The product line had grown to over 300 separate app versions spanning 18 languages, and AccelaStudy was consistently ranked among the top education apps on the App Store.
Milestone
Pearson® System of Courses (Common Core for K-12)
Pearson's Common Core System of Courses (CCSoC) v1.0 was delivered in July 2013, with Charles serving as mobile architect. The platform delivered Common Core curriculum for grades K-12 across iOS, Windows, and Android (via Chrome app). This was a significant enterprise engagement — the native iOS and Windows apps plus the Chrome-packaged web app for Android were all still available in their respective stores years later. Work on Pearson continued through 2014-2015.
Relocated to Dallas-Fort Worth
Renkara Media Group relocates from the Chicago area to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in Texas, establishing a new base closer to major enterprise clients and a lower cost of living.
AccelaStudy Cloud Generation 2 (Parse + Firebase)
AccelaStudy v3.0 shipped with a hybrid cloud architecture: Parse still handled user accounts and storage, but real-time synchronization was moved to Firebase for sub-second propagation between simultaneous clients. A user could study on their iPhone and iPad at the same time and see changes propagate in milliseconds. This was a an inconvenient transitional architecture, but it worked.
Milestone
AccelaStudy Cloud Generation 3 (Custom)
After Facebook announced Parse's shutdown in January 2016, Renkara decided it needed to own its cloud platform and migrated to a fully-owned stack. AccelaStudy v3.2 was the first version to run on the new AccelaStudy Cloud — a scalable and highly-avaialble platform featuring multi-master replication, complete offline support, single-digit millisecond latency, and COPPA/GDPR/PCI compliance. Firebase was replaced entirely in February 2017 with the AccelaStudy Cloud's custom real-time sync engine.
InnovationAccelaStudy Infinite Released
After approximately three years of rebuilding AccelaStudy using Apple's latest technologies, Renkara consolidated over 300 separate AccelaStudy app versions into a single modern application called AccelaStudy Infinite, released in September 2018. The app featured a recurring subscription model and was designed to deliver unlimited content types beyond language vocabulary.
Launch
Consulting Practice Spun Off to Vantalect
Renkara Media Group spins off its consulting practice into Vantalect, LLC, a separate entity focused on cloud infrastructure, governance and compliance, and AI engineering. The move allows Renkara to focus exclusively on its adaptive learning products and the AVIAN engine while Vantalect continues to serve enterprise consulting clients independently.
Keller, Texas
Renkara Media Group settles in Keller, Texas, the company's current home in the DFW metroplex.
Patent Portfolio Development Begins
Development begins on a comprehensive patent portfolio. Drafting starts on The AccelaStudy Method and is soon rebranded as AVIAN as the breath of the one patent expands into 26 separate patent applications describing the most powerful adaptive learning platform ever created.
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First AVIAN Patent Filed
Renkara files its first provisional patent application (63/906,341) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, covering the core AVIAN adaptive learning architecture. The filing contains 35 claims spanning knowledge synthesis, cognitive modeling, and adaptive assessment. It marks the beginning of a comprehensive intellectual property strategy to protect eighteen years of accumulated innovation.
IP
26 Additional Patents Filed
Renkara files 26 additional provisional patent applications, extending the total AVIAN portfolio to 27 filings encompassing 593 claims — the most comprehensive adaptive learning patent portfolio ever assembled.
IPInternal Tools Suite Launches
Ten internal tools launch to support engineering, marketing, and operations: Docket, Fulcrum, Beacon, Herald, Narrative, Meridian, Trellis, Slate, Dossier, and Packed. All built 100% by Claude.
Launch
AccelaStudy AI Launches with AVIAN
After eighteen years of building learning software — from the first flashcard app in the App Store to a groundbreaking adaptive learning engine protected by 26 patent filings — Renkara Media Group launches AccelaStudy AI. Powered by the AVIAN engine, it is the first certification prep platform to fully map a learner's journey from novice to exam-ready, continuously modeling what you know, identifying what you don't, and adapting every session in real time without requiring you to choose what to study or when.
It is the product that every version of AccelaStudy was building toward.
LaunchGRE® is a registered trademark of Educational Testing Service (ETS). GMAT™ is a trademark of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). HarperCollins® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers LLC. Pearson® is a registered trademark of Pearson Education, Inc. Hess® is a registered trademark of Hess Corporation. None of these organizations endorses or is affiliated with Renkara Media Group or AccelaStudy. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.