Karisma Kidz

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Karisma Kidz: Character Counts

Wallington, United KingdomUK, Spain, USA, United Kingdom
Year Founded:
2012
Organization type: 
for profit
Project Stage:
Established
Budget: 
$500,000 - $1 million
Website:
http://www.karismakidz.co.uk
Twitter: 
https://twitter.com/Karismakidz
Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/KarismaKidz
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Karisma Kidz is a multi-award-winning brand delivering positive social impact using digital games with real-world inputs to develop emotional, social and entrepreneurial skills in children aged 3-8. We are uniquely positioned to deliver this, given our team’s expertise in EQ and child development.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

We could use technology to improve and sustain parental engagement and offer every child the opportunity to be successful and reach their potential
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Developing the ability to identify and regulate emotions is recognised as one of the fundamental stages of child development. Failure to develop essential emotional and social skills at an early age can substantially reduce a child’s ability to fulfil his/her potential at school, while also making it harder to develop strong social relationships. A substantial body of research indicates that this can lead to loss of confidence, conduct disorders.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

Karisma Kidz is a multi-award-winning brand that combines online games with offline activities to teach young children aged 3-8 emotional, social and entrepreneurial skills in a super-empowering and fun way. Parents engage with their children in an online world that links seamlessly with positive toys, activities and rewards in the ‘real’ world. Our expertise in emotional intelligence, parenting and gaming spans more than 35 years and our aim is to use technology to unleash emotional intelligence! We support children and their parents by testing and enhancing emotional, social and entrepreneurial skills in 10 key areas, while ensuring that the increasing availability of mobile devices has a positive impact on children’s wellbeing.

Awards

We have won 16 awards and accolades including Intel’s Global Business Challenge, admission into BBC Labs to secure a commercial partnership with BBC Worldwide, SMARTA 100 Female Entrepreneur of the Year and Tech City News’ people’s choice award.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

Karisma Kidz combines unique algorithms which track and trace how children are responding emotionally to content they are exposed to; a task, tracking and rewards system enabling positive parental engagement; and fun, engaging children’s games subtly embedded with established techniques for enhancing emotional, social and entrepreneurial skills. Children create an avatar and play their way from fear factory and angry alley, to love lane and confidence castle while completing offline tasks such as eating healthily and saving energy, that enable them to become little superheroes! We also provide an effective bridge between on and off line worlds in a disruptive, fun, and engaging way, at a time when children and families need it most.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

Karisma Kidz launched in beta in February 2014. The MVP was distributed to c. 2M devices and distribution to 3M devices by the end of 2015 and 12M devices by the end of 2016 is agreed. We have won 16 awards and accolades in the last 24 months. We are supported by KPMG’s High Growth Tech Group, and have secured £100,000 match funding to scale. Feedback is outstanding. Karisma Kidz is a 5 star rated app and parents confirm we engage and encourage children to follow pursuits that see them eating more healthily, interacting with others more positively and using their creative centres to work in partnership with others, solve problems and positively manage their moods. Our vision is to become the leader in the field of social, emotional and entrepreneurial learning technology for children! We aim to grow to 1 million monthly active users in 2016 and reach 50M global users within 5 years.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

Our hobbies section includes activities such as painting and virtual cooking, which easily translate to and encourage offline activities. Soon it will include programming and maker activities too! Based on where children chose to spend their time, we recommend offline family activities that help to effect behaviour change. Recommendations are made through our Parents’ Dashboard, a unique resource that provides inspiration and support. Parents can set play lengths and times and reinforce positive behaviour in their children by setting real-world tasks and rewarding their completion w
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

Karisma Kidz has 4 revenue streams. The 1st is device preloads. We have partnerships with two multinationals and guaranteed preloads to 14 million devices by Dec 2016. The 2nd is from licensing deals which we have in place with retailers, family attractions and children’s entertainment companies, 3rd from in-app purchases made by parents and 4th from white-labled products created for brands and manufacturers that wish to effect behavioural change

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

Ed Tech is a fairly crowded space – However, most companies focus on academic rather than emotional learning. Our closest competitor is If You Can, which is VC backed and has similar aims to Karisma Kidz but is aimed at the older 8+ age group and doesn’t include the parents dashboard. We have a strong first-mover advantage in this area for our target age range.
Team

Founding Story

Karisma Kidz was founded as a result of personal experience with my childrens’ stress and anxiety. A 24-year-old single mother of five, I was acutely aware of the statistical prognosis for my children and I. Determined to take our destinies into my own hands, I learned to effectively manage my own emotions, and went on to create some amazing tools to help my children to become more emotionally intelligent. - Their levels of attainment at school skyrocketed. Simple, easy-to-learn techniques enabled us to completely turn our lives around. My children learned the magical powers of their minds, with the eldest securing a scholarship to secondary school and achieving straight A/B grades at GCSE.

Team

Our team comprises parents, teachers, gaming engineers, a child psychologist, and an expert in process reengineering. Our expertise in emotional intelligence, parenting and gaming spans more than 35 years and is unrivalled. Together we have built a platform that combines unique algorithms which track and trace how children are responding emotionally to content they are exposed to; a task, tracking and rewards system enabling positive parental engagement; and fun, engaging children’s games subtly embedded with established techniques for enhancing emotional, social and entrepreneurial skills
Background
Please confirm how you heard about the Unilever Awards:

Via the team at Ashoka

Please confirm your role in the initiative (eg Founder/co-Founder) and your organisational title:

Co-Founder

Which of the 8 UN Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals) pre-selected for this competition does your solution relate most closely to? [select all that apply]

No Poverty, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Responsible Consumption and Production.

Leadership and the Unilever Awards
Please provide examples of any previous entrepreneurial initiatives you have pioneered.

I have created a wealth of training seminars and digital resources covering emotional and social learning, parental work-life balance, digital safety, and digital parenting. I have also built a strong reputation as an expert in the areas of Emotional Intelligence and Parenting, regularly being asked to contribute to segments on Sky News, BBC and ITV and delivering seminars for The British Library, Credit Suisse and Hogan Lovells to name a few of my previous clients.

Beyond your existing team, who else are you working with to achieve your objectives, eg partners, advisors, mentors?

We have partnered with the BBC, Telefonica, KD Interactive and Intel thus far. We have made games that teach skills such as healthy eating, finacial management and responsible energy consumption. We aim to expand to partnerships with other brands to further prove the effectiveness of the use of games to effect behaviour change. We are part of Ernst and Young's Accelerate programme, while KPMG’s High Growth Technology Group supports us in managing our finances and our board includes Sue Atkins (Parenting Made Easy), Michael Ogden (Sony Playstation), and Chris Maples (Microsoft; Spotify).

Comments

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