Like two ships in the night, tech entrepreneurs Louis Piconi Jr., and Stephan Mueller frequently passed each other politely -- a casual greeting, mutual respect, unaware that eventually their destinies would collide.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Apangea founders Louis Piconi, left, and Stephan Mueller. Click photo for larger image.

The duo worked in the same Hazelwood building -- Piconi at the Pittsburgh Technology Council and Mueller at what was then the Ben Franklin Technology Center, and each month they would share ideas as a part of a coalition charged with helping young companies get on the right track.

And then it happened. After a chance encounter at the 2002 Three Rivers Venture fair, the pair launched Apangea Learning Inc. -- a tutoring software company that uses humans and computers to boost students' school assessment test scores.

What sets Apangea apart in a crowded field stuffed with computer and Web-based tutoring options is its approach.

"The artificial intelligence behind their technology is something we did not find with anybody else," said Michael Matesic, managing director at the Idea Foundry, one of Apangea's angel investors.

Apangea's technology customizes each tutorial to the need of the student, so "if a student is having trouble with one section, it continues to target that area,'' Matesic said. "And the questions are tailored around the student's interest."

Why would two technology veterans whose track records include start-ups and MBAs choose education as their path?

"We as a country don't do a good job of teaching people to think," said Mueller. "I grew up in a family of teachers," added Piconi. "I was taught, if you're going to do something with your life, do something worthwhile."

Using technology developed by the Air Force and licensed from a Texas-based technology firm, Command Technologies, Apangea's approach mixes children's affinity for computers with the traditional teacher-student relationship to drive down the cost of helping students conquer their yearly standardized math and writing exams.

With an idea to transform the way children learn, Piconi, 35 and Mueller, 32, found a shared goal. "He was every bit as passionate about helping kids and the state of education as I was," said Piconi of co-founder Mueller. "We really wanted to remediate struggling students."

Armed with the monetary blessings of a few Pennsylvania-based "angel'' investors -- people with money who invest in young companies and promising ideas -- Piconi and Mueller got rolling with Apangea.

Capitalizing on contacts developed in their previous careers, Apangea captured its first client -- Project StepUp, a Heinz Endowments and Grable Foundation-funded math-focused tutoring program for high-school students. Apangea designed server-based software to be used in a number of local school districts to help students fortify their math skills.

Apangea was a good fit for the program for a variety of reasons, most notably the cost and alternative approach to teaching, said Heinz education programs director Gerry Balbier. "We were looking for a variation in learning environments," he said. "It's really based on solid research. Not a lot of programs give the human tutor and the computer tutor combined. It's going to be an affordable approach to providing math tutoring."

After hearing about Project StepUp, another customer, Johns-town-based education center the Learning Lamp, approached them. The center, which will launch a tutoring program to prepare 11th-graders for their school assessments next week, liked Apangea's pricing but was impressed with other factors, as well.

"What really appealed to me was that they were already working with the same kinds of students I would be working with," said Leah Spangler, the center's executive director. "It was something that was a lot more geared toward kids having difficulty."

Another selling point, say Balbier and Spangler, is Apangea's less formal approach to learning. "I was having a heck of a time coming up with software geared toward mid- to low-performing students," said Spangler. "We like the opportunity to provide them with a different format. They are on computers working at their own pace. And,'' she added with a laugh, "it eliminates behavior problems."

On a computer screen filled with quirky colors and graphics reminiscent of the famed "Jetsons" cartoon, Apangea students move through math and writing tutorials step by step, only turning to the real-life tutor as a last resort.

"What kids like is that it works with them anonymously," said Piconi of the Apangea tutor. "It helps them without being singled out."

For Apangea, an opportunity arose out of the passage of a controversial law.

Under the 2-year-old education reform bill known as "No Child Left Behind," school districts are under increased pressure to deliver higher test scores or possibly lose federal dollars.

If a school district hasn't maintained a state-mandated standard of improvement for three years consecutively, it must spend a minimum of 5 percent of its Title I dollars -- federal grants to school districts -- on alternative approaches to helping students pass the standardized tests, said Lex Towle, Apangea's newly hired vice president of outreach who is charged with drumming up more customers for the North-side based firm.

He said Title I funds have risen 41 percent the past three years, to more than $14 billion, and five percent of that is now mandated to go into tutoring. That should only serve to strengthen the market for Apangea's products, he said.

When it offers its program on the Web in June, Apangea hopes to benefit by making tutoring accessible to children in rural areas and by slashing the costs of delivering tutoring services to about $5 an hour from a typical $20 to $100 per hour for private sessions. A human instructor will be available via an online chat box, or "Call Center," similar to AOL's Instant Messenger, which will guide students and answer their questions entirely on the Web.

Apangea executives said that despite being in expansion mode -- marketing the program nationally once it's available on the Internet and adding staff -- they want to remain true to their mission. "Our goal is to have a program that doesn't step on teachers' toes," said Piconi.