Awesome Tolu! Moving forward, (and it sounds very exciting) now that the content will be developed :) Please feel free to let me know how I can help!

I am looking forward to discussing the progress next time :)

Mentor Session 4 with Zsolt

Had a mentor session with @Zsolt Bugarszki on Monday 13th July and we discussed the current status of my product development journey for the educational toys. Though I am still in the market/customer research phase, I hope to continue the design thinking process with Jodee in coming weeks as I work on the market research and product development.

I also got some useful suggestion about reviewing my final survey questions with a survey expert on the SEIncubation platform and I I tend to do this before the surveys.

We also reviewed my 6 months project schedule and I got some needed feedback on activities to include in this phase of the product development until we reach the prototyping and manufacturing stage in the next 6 months. I will work with the timeline in this project schedule as it would greatly help with time management and task execution.

Thanks and any feedback and questions are welcome.

😊

Mentor Session 3 with Zsolt

I decided to create a product for the two target groups which are:

Persona A: Kids living abroad with their parents with little or no contact with their Nigerian culture

Persona B: 'In school kids' and 'out of school kids' in Nigeria

Current tasks:

-Creation of the Personas

-Content creation planning

-Survey/questionnaire administration planning(recruitment of friends or friend of friends who are located in different part of Nigeria to help administer the survey with the target group such as parents, teachers etc)

-Additional research on persona A target group to have a better understanding of the expat parents, their possible amount and distribution etc.

Proposed Tasks:

-Creation of a Gantt chart visualizing tasks, the delegated human and other resources and the timeframe for the next 6 months period.

-Explore opportunities to recruit/consult an education to help with the content creation and content quality.

Very nice progress Tolu!

Mentor Session 2 with Jodee

We reviewed the project and identified the need to create a persona for another target group which would be faster to reach. This group includes kids of Nigerian based abroad and who have not really interacted with their culture. The product would provide them an opportunity to know more about their language and even learn words amongst other things possible.

We discussed using the design thinking process in creating this solution, these include:

Empathize

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test

I got some resources to create a persona for this second target group and would create it and share it here later on. Also had a brainwriting session where we were able to create a possible questioning pattern for the interview/survey session with parents of these kids in the Persona A being created.

Persona A: if age 4-5 They are very small and young, so you can reach them via pre-school teachers or their parents (people who directly providing 'day' care for them) If your Persona is older, like able to download from App Stores, but if it is a hardware/toy then you must remember to take note of Advertising regulations especially in the USA, Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Application compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"). This is for children under age 13 If Persona A: Bilingual (English - any 2nd language) or Trilingual parents many of them doubled as teachers (nowadays) too, so they homeschool their child/children. This is a large group in great need of toy/teaching aids. Considering COVID19 impacts, even if you will just do an edtech toy/teaching aid, digital is at the highest advantage. Toys with hardware (power adaptations) are best until the shipping and transportation, distribution issues will be eased.

Great idea to make this foldable which makes it less limiting for content.

Hello, here is a simple draft of what I want the toy to look like.

Each of the grids can be pressed for a narration.

It’s foldable

Electronic and control unit on the right

Possibility of have a solar panel embedded on the back side and can be charged while not in use.

Excellent plan Tolulope. I’d also suggest you look to see if previous similar research has been done about this type of educational toy that is available to the public. I look forward to seeing your progress.

Yes, totally agree 100% with @Elek Fazekas on 'fun factor'! I have some prior experience on a language game for bilingual children in US and we also use very engaging graphics design. Applying Design Thinking is also a great method. Content development took up bulk of the work, but it is worth it! We were working on English - French - Spanish and for that persona we could manage 100,000+ downloads I can imagine that your toy could also consider using 'Solar' or renewable energy resources @Jackson Seng might be interested to explore your project. It has many interesting avenues to discuss 'sustainability' :) Do continue to update us any further developments. Yes, some visualisations as Zsolt mention too ;)

This is very useful idea!

I had experience with such educational toys without sound, mostly cards, boards, books, plushes, etc. The main problem was that most of these tools didn't provide any fun. When you work on something for kids don't afraid to include as much fun factor as possible, even for the expense of educational and developmental factors. When I think about such toys the most important and hardest part is to be able to seat down kids to use them. If the children enjoy using your tools they will learn more and might start to play with them in their free time. Most of the tools aim for the learning component in the expense of the fun they provide, these are failing because couldn't offer an enjoyable expereience.

I have two little brothers in primary school (4th grade and 7th grade), one of them learns english and the other one studies german. Both using perfect english because of the mobile and PC games they play. When I asked them about their language lessons they both told me that it's useless and they get their knowledge from their games.

Imagine the fun factor and study factor as a scales opposite sites.

Wonderful project Tolu. I would love to see the first mockup of the toy, even if it is a drawing or a simple 2D visualization. First when I read about your idea I couldn't imagine what kind of toy it would be? A Teddy Bear that talks? A mini "computer" working with battery and children are pressing buttons? I need some visualization of the toy.

@Tolulope KIlanko Wonderful. I’m especially impressed with your desire to get educational tools to those who can not attend school. I’d love to see a NGO pick this up and distribute them to rural towns/villages etc. 1. What are your thoughts on solving the age range per toy? Growth of development happens quickly. For instance 2 and 4 or 7 and 9 etc. 2. Have you looked into pre-recorded learning toys? They seem to be very limited. There are a couple companies: V-Tech and Baby Einstein for the younger kids which gives you an idea of the limitations on the market.