Office Hours: Education + Tech + Smart Storytelling = Kidaptive

The AF / Square team and I are excited to continue our “office hours” series on LinkedIn by highlighting the interactive education and entertainment company Kidaptive (http://www.kidaptive.com/). Kidaptive produces “Leo’s Pad,” the award-winning preschool learning app on the App Store. We learned about the company at the Los Angeles-based LAUNCH Conference. We decided to invest in Kidaptive because we believe the combination of technology and smart storytelling is critical to how kids are learning today. We are also big believers in programs like ImagineK12 (http://www.imaginek12.com/) that are funding the next generation of entrepreneurs dedicated to improving education through technology.

As with all of the companies we highlight through these posts, our goal is not to boost the value of the companies, but to expose the world to fascinating, early-stage technology that they might not experience otherwise.

Learning Through Smart Storytelling

Kidaptive’s first product, “Leo’s Pad” is a series of animated apps or "appisodes" designed for the iPad that engage preschool-aged children with adaptive games, puzzles, and projects woven into an immersive story arc. The interactive early-learning curriculum behind Leo’s Pad has been developed in collaboration with Stanford University researchers. The Kidaptive technology uses embedded assessments to customize learning, support metacognitive development, and provide parents with actionable intelligence and useful tips about how to further support their child's progress and interests.

Data Combined with State of the Art Animation

The actionable intelligence for parents that is generated by Kidaptive is derived from the beautiful, interactive animation and adaptive games that are extremely compelling to children. The quality of the animation is outstanding in "Leo’s Pad” which tells the story of eight-year-old Leonardo da Vinci "Leo," playfully re-imagined on adventures with pals Galileo "Gally," Marie Curie "Marie," Confucius "Fusch," and other historical characters. Beyond the entertainment value of “Leo’s Pad,” the app seeks to break new ground for children’s learning in three ways, according to Kidaptive’s site:

CURRICULUM-BASED CONTENT
Kids practice skills from a comprehensive curriculum that features over 70 cognitive, academic, and social “learning dimensions” that are crucial to your child’s development.

ADAPTIVE GAMEPLAY
Games adapt as children play, providing just the right level of difficulty to motivate learning.

ENGAGING STORIES TO HELP LEARNING
Games are embedded in engaging stories, which improve learning and maximize knowledge retention.

The Kidaptive team is just getting started – and the company is still considered “early stage.” However, if the first release from Kidaptive is any indicator of the company’s future traction, we believe the Kidaptive approach could quickly become a standard in early child education and entertainment.

As always, if you are interested in staying in touch with the interesting, innovative and “just plain cool” companies we are seeing at Atom Factory, shoot us an email at afnews@afsquare.com. Our team looks forward to keeping you in the loop on what we are seeing on the digital horizon.

Watch this space for profiles of other companies we think are potentially transformative — whether we back them or not.