The other point to make here is that this is the only centre observing Indian children’s behaviour.

The goal is make the design age appropriate from a first hand understanding of how kids play.

Then we watch the kids play with the product prototypes. We just let kids play and think – how can this idea be turned into a product? We watched a kid waiting outside the centre play a video game on his mother’s phone and actually thought, why not make a physical product from this game. Psychologists and designers observe how kids learn, play, grow at the R&D centre which functions as a play lab. Our starting point is different so we end up in a different place. How does Flinto bring fresh inspiration to the box every month? Parents and teachers have actually been the ones to share this information with their family and friends and advocate our philosophy for us. Kids are visibly more independent and self confident, better at making decisions, negotiating and adapting to new situations. We’ve also started tracking immediate benefits within the classroom via observational data and seen a 90% increase in attention spans just because kids aren’t bored. Our curriculum heavily promotes cooperative play –– using make-believe situations to achieve common goals together. Back at home, they read more, are more curious about discovering the world around them, communicate better – all vital signs of brain development. Has it been hard to convince parents and teachers of the benefits of a play-centred curriculum?Ĭhildren are happier. It’s early days still but we’ve seen costs of opening a pre-school down by 80% and income generation up anywhere between 50 - 80%. To put that in context, 46 million kids are enrolled in preschools in China and only 3 million in India. And while parents increasingly want to send their kids to branded schools, there just aren’t enough schools to keep up with the demand. As we began to dig deeper into the opportunity, we saw that 90% kids aren’t enrolled in preschool in India. Our goal here is to create a platform that allows a neighbourhood school to quickly and efficiently ramp up its curriculum, training and assessment. In fact an interesting side effect of the business has been empowering women running pre-schools in their communities. In some ways perhaps it was a solution they’ve always been looking for. Many of our subscription service customers were actually pre-school teachers who wanted a syllabus style solution. What prompted the product diversification from home to school? We have a subscription solution that brings play back into family time at home as well as an “airbnb for play schools' for teachers. By flipping our approach around, we’ve designed a scalable early-learning system based on the science of play. This is a radically different approach in India where many still believe that the best learning happens when kids sit still and follow directions. And while theoretically everybody agrees that play helps children acquire such skills, it’s still considered ancillary to learning. We see these as opportunities where we can have a big impact on a child's social, motor, emotional, cognitive skills and cultural knowledge by letting them do what they do best – playing. Pre-schools are also becoming a second home for kids in those early years. And actually given how Indian cities are developing, there’s very little outdoor time, kids are no longer climbing trees or crossing bridges. Parents are hyper-ambitious for their kids but moms are out working, grandparents, aunts and uncles are less a core part of kids' lives, cousins often don’t live in the same city and of course screen time dominates. This is true across the 25 big cities in India. In the last decade, the fabric of the Indian family has dramatically changed from a child’s point of view. What are some of the broader trends you’ve noticed in early childhood development and how does Flinto respond to them? Interview with Arunprasad Durairaj, co-founder & CEO: what we're learning about early learning.

Flinto class