The company Four Ferries was founded by researchers behind the eMath and ViRum projects, and the scientific work leading up to these projects. The eMath project 2011 - 2016 was funded by EU and the Swedish Cultural Foundation. The aim was to pilot the structured derivation approach to mathematics education in high schools, and build a digital platform for mathematics education in general. The Virum project 2014 - 2017 was also funded  by the Swedish Cultural Foundation. The aim of this project was to develop a digital platform for virtual education. The research in these projects was carried out at Abo Akademi University and University of Turku.

Four Ferries has an agreement with the two universities to commercialize the results of these research projects. The focus is on supporting computer based  teaching of mathematics. The aims have since then widened, so that we now provide a powerful learning platform for all topics in school education, in the form of the 4f Studio. At the same time,  support for mathematics education has also been considerably extended, in particular with the new improved tools for creating solutions to mathematical problems, checking the step-by-step correctness of these solutions, and the new eMath textbook series for high school mathematics.

Four Ferries main commercial activities started  in March 2017,  when the research projects had ended. The focus has been on turning the  prototypes developed in the research projects  into attractive commercial products. This has meant creating a wholly new online version of the original 4f Studio learning environment, a substantial extension and strengthening of the automatic checker, and continuous work on improving the user interface and ease of use. The company has been working in close cooperation with a number of  middle schools, high schools, and universities in Finland.  The pilots carried out with these have proved to be very fruitful, leading to a number of improvements in both functionality, robustness and user friendliness.

Mission

To improve understanding by creating a safe environment for learning from mistakes