We also introduce you to StartupWarrior.com and highlight the inaugural Online Marketing for Women Entrepreneurs workshop.

For many of us with short attention spans, it’s easy to blame the thousands of hours spent playing Super Mario Bros. and other video games for our inability to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Imagine if we were able to grab a joystick or mouse to get some of those cognitive skills back. Better yet, what if a video game could help us become better learners right out of the gate?

Learning Enhancement Corp. (LEC), which is based in downtown Chicago, develops video games like BrainWare Safari to help pre-teens think more clearly. The software, which is sold direct to consumers as well as to schools and clinicians, invites young users to inhabit an animated character that gradually grows up as each cognitive skill is developed.

“The video game format is fun,” said LEC President Betsy Hill, “and that is a key part of the motivation.”

BrainWare Safari is a digital extension of individual mental exercises that have traditionally been offered one on one in the classroom or from personal tutors and therapists. The program is designed to strengthen 41 different cognitive skills including memory, audio/visual processing and attention in a playful way.

After the young players choose a character with names like Jackie Jaguar or Moby Monkey, they proceed through a series of jungle-themed mental exercises. The characters gradually mature as each of the 168 levels are mastered.

While BrainWare Safari is geared toward students of all stripes, it offers specific tools for those with learning disabilities who have traditionally been served via costly and time-intensive individual therapy sessions. Hill says BrainWare’s price, which ranges from $350 to $800 at this URL, is more accessible than the several thousands charged by clinical programs.

With the clinical approach, Hill says “you can never afford to teach every student in the Chicago Public Schools system”.

At 55, Hill knows a thing or two about education. The North Shore native started her career as a teacher at North Shore Country Day School. After executive stints at NutraSweet and a couple tech start-ups, Hill joined LEC in 2005. She also serves as chairman of the board of trustees at Chicago State University and is a professor in the M.B.A. program at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

LEC, which was founded in 2001 by media and technology entrepreneur Richard Stark, was funded by angel investors until BrainWare was released in 2006. While Hill would not disclose financials, she did say that sales are increasing each month and the nine-employee company is currently raising up to $5 million in a venture capital round.

“Everybody can improve their cognitive skills,” she said. “At some point, I believe we will end up in a world that – just like physical exercise – mental fitness will become much more a part of our lives.”

Bits & Bytes

For those interested in a top-level view of Chicago’s Internet start-up scene, check out a new blog at StartupWarrior.com. In addition to providing background information on dozens of local companies including 37signals, crowdSPRING and Viewpoints, the new site incorporates a Google mapping feature to show where they’re located and who else is around them.

Blagica Bottigliero of Bsolutions and Genevieve Thiers of Sittercity will be among the presenters on Sept. 9, 2008 at the inaugural Online Marketing for Women Entrepreneurs workshop at the Millennium Knickerbocker in Chicago. The workshop is designed to encourage and assist the 40 percent of women business owners who don’t have a Web site to get online.