What is the name of your organization?
Affectifi Inc.
What is the name of your solution?
ThinkHumanJr
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
ThinkHumanJr helps kids build emotional literacy by integrating reflective practice with popular television.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Brooklyn, NY, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Young children aren’t getting the support they need developing emotional skills like self-regulation and empathy, which are essential for psychological health, as well as academic and professional success. Child anxiety and depression are at their highest recorded levels. One in five US preschoolers is diagnosed with a mental health or behavioral issue, and one in three kids meets anxiety diagnosis criteria by 18. These disturbing trends are especially evident among low-income children.
What is your solution?
Affectifi developed ThinkHumanTV, an AI-powered, human-curated “learning layer,” which offers evidence-based emotional literacy training integrated directly with popular children's TV on major streaming platforms like YouTube and Netflix. The technology was developed by Columbia cognitive scientists with support from the National Science Foundation.
Affectifi is preparing to launch a mobile app for kids aged 3-8 called ThinkHumanJr, which was designed in partnership with Sesame Workshop and is powered by the ThinkHumanTV engine. The app will make use of freely available YouTube content from trusted creators like PBS Kids. As a public benefit corporation, Affectifi is seeking to make ThinkHumanJr available for free to lower income families in the US and beyond via partners like Games & Learning and Kanopy.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
ThinkHumanJr is designed for kids aged 3-8. While emotional literacy has proven to be a significant protective factor in children’s mental health, parents and educators currently lack engaging and effective tools to help them bolster it. Existing solutions for kids often fail because of their simplistic and insufficiently diverse content, and inadequate attention to evidence-based design. Even when these tools are effective, they’re less likely to resonate with and be accessible to underserved families (often POC youths).
The unique approach adopted by ThinkHumanJr, whereby emotional skill-building is integrated with popular TV, meets young kids where they are and helps ensure that they are genuinely engaged while learning. At the same time, it offers parents reassurance about their kids' screen time. Furthermore, utilizing the massive libraries of the major streaming services, coupled with an innovative, AI-powered training engine, allows ThinkHumanJr to offer a truly individualized and culturally responsive learning experience where kids, including those with learning differences, are able to build skills while watching content they find engaging and authentic.
