Ahmedabad, Sept. 29: For those who dread its monumental length, finishing War and Peace may just be possible with a new software for speed-reading.

Created by IIM Ahmedabad alumnus Mahesh Jagdeo, Target Power Read puts a reader through the paces by rapidly flashing words in various formats: in ones, twos or more, in whole sentences, or in entire texts with a word each highlighted in succession.

The aim is to train a person to read and comprehend more words in less time so that an average reader, who reads about 150 to 300 words a minute, can double or triple the speed. Users can set their own speed and monitor it.

The software was one of 27 entrepreneurial schemes out of 100 entries countrywide that made the cut at the National Institute of Design?s project for young design entrepreneurs.

NID?s Design Business Incubator helped 32-year-old Jagdeo ?finetune? the software with inputs from experts and has also readied a marketing strategy to be powered by its networking muscle.

Jagdeo may well become a role model for young ?design-preneurs? that the incubator aims at, said its chief operating officer Prashant Kutaula, himself an IIMA graduate.

Jagdeo graduated in human resource management in 1994 and started out with pharmaceutical firm Torrent. After a subsequent brief stint as a management consultant in Ahmedabad, he moved to Nagpur and set up his company, Target Exploration.

Kutaula vouches for the software?s effectiveness as he has installed it in his Ahmedabad-based firm, Riverlearn, which coaches students for MBA entrance exams. He claims 85 per cent students doubled or tripled their reading speed after they practised on the software for a week.

Jagdeo hit upon the idea when he saw news headlines scrolling across the bottom of the television screen and realised he could read whole sentences faster as words kept coming a few at a time.

For six months, he worked on the software, realising its potential in competitive examinations.

As a first step to its launch, 10 institutions ? such as coaching centres and management schools ? from each major city would be invited to NID in December for a workshop.

Priced at Rs 60,000, the software has found potential buyers in the Nirma Institute of Management and Technology, and Mudra Institute of Communication and Advertising. It is already being used by Nagpur-based ICAD Academy to train higher secondary students for competitive exams.