Dental students will soon have access to a new 3D visual learning tool thanks to a tech-savvy former dental nurse.

The visual learning platform, due to launch later this month, has been developed by dental nurse turned entrepreneur, Chloe Barrett.

Chloe, 28, came up with the idea three years ago and, since then, has found a developer who shares her vision, developed a prototype that uses augmented reality and animation.

Investors are now sought for the innovative 3D dental learning platform – http://digidentistry.co.uk – that was developed at The Landing at MediaCityUK in Manchester.

The project has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) .

Chloe has also developed a multi-lingual platform for international students, engage academic writers from King's College London and recruited a dentist/professional voiceover artist.

Following three challenging interviews, Chloe has been invited to Silicon Valley in the US to take part in an intensive two-week accelerator programme for women launching tech start-ups.

All that remains is for Chloe to find investors to join her on her journey and help her to develop the platform further and, ultimately, to conquer markets in the UK and the US.

Chloe’s achievement is testament to her sheer ambition and her determination to challenge herself to do more.

Before she discovered dentistry and learning, Chloe started out as a professional dressage rider competing across the UK with her horse Eva. At 16, she even was the youngest rider in the Young Horse of the Year Championships, coming 10th place. Following this success, she started coaching other riders and had a real talent for it. In 2008, when the recession hit, she had to find another source of income and found a job as a dental nurse, although she carried on teaching horse riding in her spare time.

The world of dentistry was an exciting challenge but she wanted more and her hunger for learning led her to study for the highest qualifications she could in dental teaching and assessing, studying three nights a week at university on top of her day job.

When the opportunity to join a dental academy as an assessor and teacher became available, she jumped at the chance. But on discovering at the interview that the dental academy was failing and was about to shut down, she took it over, aged just 24, and started to rebuild it. Chloe set up five new bases for the Academy, established new apprenticeships and postgraduate courses and saved the business from ruin.

Chloe said: 'Rescuing the dental academy was a huge achievement and an incredible journey. I learnt so much from this experience as I treated it like my own company and built it up from practically nothing. Once I got the Academy up and running, I started thinking about starting my own business and I could see there was a real gap in the market for better, more visual, training resources.

'There really wasn’t anything out there that students could use to continue their learning from home after they left the classroom and I wanted to create something that would support more practical learning.'

'I took my vision to a number of developers and eventually found one in Manchester who understood what I was trying to achieve and we began to develop a prototype. There was a lot of uncertainty along the way but, eventually, DigiDentistry began to take shape so I left the Academy to pursue the business full time and I’m really excited about the future.

'Launching a tech business is tough but with The Landing’s support it has been so much easier.'

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