Mangola

Globally 740 million children attend primary schools that often reward rote learning and focus on test performance. This education model may have been useful to mold children for the 20th-century industrial economy, but it is thoroughly inadequate for thriving in a world where over 40% of existing jobs are likely to be automated and 85% of future jobs haven’t been invented yet. In an increasingly uncertain world, children need to develop a breadth of skills beyond numeracy and literacy that allow them to engage in independent lifelong learning.

Mangola draws on the interdisciplinary science of learning - guided play (how children learn) and 21st-century skills (what children need to learn) and capitalizes on the growing cell phone use and increasing access to the Internet, to help children prepare for the future through a fun, hybrid online-offline mobile game that teaches them critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity.

According to The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020, the workforce is automating faster than expected, displacing 85 million jobs in the next five years alone. Another study conducted by McKinsey estimates that the adaptation of currently demonstrated automation technologies could affect 50 percent of the world economy, or 1.2 billion employees and $14.6 trillion in wages.

With automation changing the fundamental nature of work, a new set of skills like critical thinking and creativity are becoming increasingly necessary to survive in an unpredictable future. However, our educational systems have not kept pace with the changing nature of work, creating a skills gap, in which employers struggle to hire appropriately trained workers. A recent Deloitte report illustrates the breadth of this problem in the context of manufacturing alone: “[T]he skills gap may leave an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled between 2018 and 2028, with a potential economic impact of $2.5 trillion.”

Mangola aims to fill this gap that exists between what kids learn in school and the skills they need to thrive in the age of automation, by complementing classroom education through play-based learning that fosters the development of 21st-century skills. 

Mangola is a hybrid offline-online mobile game that promotes the development of 21st-century skills in children through guided play. It utilizes the engagement and entertainment values that are inherent in games to motivate kids to accomplish tasks in an interactive and fun way.

The basis is an adventure game set in the near future. It takes place on a Mars colony where players (kids) need to solve a wide range of problems, from putting out fires in the medical bay to forming a governing council. Our carefully designed scenarios encourage “the four Cs” — critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. Game interactivity is used to stimulate offline, guided play, facilitated by both the app and the child’s parents. This allows the child’s learning to be structured while still feeling fun and exciting.

In order to advance to the next level, players need to upload their creations, solutions, or responses by text, image, audio, or video. These responses can also be shared with friends and extended family like aunts, uncles, or grandparents who provide positive encouragement through the in-app communicator.

TARGET POPULATION -- PRIMARY SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN IN INDIA

Our ultimate target users are the 296 million families worldwide (assuming 2.5 children per family) with primary school-aged children (aged 6 - 12). However, during our pilot we aim to reach about 9,000 children in the sub-urban region of Kharghar, India to demonstrate that our model gives children opportunities to critically think through a problem and apply the knowledge gained in school systemically while having fun. India has over 123 million primary school-aged children and the penetration rate of the internet and smartphones is growing fast. India is estimated to have 820 million smartphone users by 2022, with the rural areas fueling the growth. Our distribution strategy is to use smartphones and tablets that people already use in daily life.

Though primary school enrollment in India has been a success story, the quality of education learning still remains a major issue. Most Indian children learn by rote all the way from primary school to college. This narrow focus on memorization and doing well on standardized exams also became apparent during our in-depth phone interviews, live sessions, and user-testing (using a 3-party app) conducted over a 3-month period with a small group of families in Kharghar.

ADDRESSING USER NEEDS -- BUILDING 21ST CENTURY SKILLS

Our initial target users, the primary school-aged children in India, experience an unbalanced educational curriculum that focuses heavily on rote learning and favors academic achievement. With the rapidly changing employment landscape and global ecosystem, it is becoming increasingly critical that children learn how to think critically and solve problems, how to be creative and multidisciplinary, and how to innovate, adapt, and absorb new material in emerging fields.

Mangola addresses the gap between the current state of learning outcomes and what is required to thrive in the age of automation and globalization. The Mangola game system is an alternative, fun, educational experience that explicitly encourages wider, more flexible, creative thought. We aim to help primary school children in India develop and experience the expression of creative, collaborative, and problem-solving skills. This aims to re-balance their educational experience and help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in the future.

UNDERSTANDING USER NEEDS -- FOUNDING FAMILIES, USER TESTING, AND  ITERATION

Mangola has evolved from ongoing user engagement and feedback. We started with digital parenting content, observed that parent-and-kids activities were most popular, created a network of “founding families” as early user testers, and iterated on an activity delivery system. This extensive interaction with families provided us feedback about activity types, user engagement, and drivers for repeat use and churn. This led us to integrate role-play game mechanics into Mangola’s design.

We now have a network of 30 founding families and we test scenario design, activity design, general usability, and playtesting with them on a weekly basis. We also interview families about their educational needs and perspectives. Our families are currently split between the US, Europe, and India. Our go-to-market focus is on India but it is helpful to have a diversity of cultural backgrounds and perspectives in our test community in order to be able to understand what’s culturally specific or not.

Each of our founding team also has specific experience to bring to bear. Our team lead, Purva, grew up in India and her immediate and extended families still live there, in Mumbai, many with primary school-aged children. Purva previously co-founded a Montessori preschool and has experience working with young children. Barney, our gamification lead, is both a game designer and an educator. He has years of experience teaching children and adults as well as designing and engaging with young children through role-play games. James, our tech lead, is a father of two young children and, as a serial entrepreneur, has deep insight into the likely impact of AI and increasing automation on the economy and the future of work.

Going forward, we will continue to interact closely with our target audience to develop a strong user feedback loop. We just formed a collaboration with the UCL Knowledge Lab to help establish a rigorous framework for evaluating the impact of Mangola.

Our mobile game application also has a number of user feedback and validation mechanisms built-in. Our game system has feedback points and a “Vassee Log” (multimedia diary, similar to a captain’s log). We are also using anonymized user activity tracking where we link events to Mixpanel and monitor both individual user journeys and aggregated conversion funnels.

Our problem, solution, and our target population are aligned with the goals of the Equitable Classroom challenge. Our solution and problem (1) tackles the need for reimagining of learning environments and helps young learners develop the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century, (2) offers strategies and tools for parental support, peer interaction, and guided independent work, and (3) enables access to quality learning experiences in low-connectivity settings. By focusing first on India, one of the poorest countries in the world, we committed to supporting the most underserved population and creating equal opportunities for all.

After testing guided playful learning activities for 3 months with 30 families, we are now working on building a prototype activity delivery app and game system. We are simultaneously testing the game mechanics and activities in a series of calls and live sessions with multiple families. However, neither of these systems is fully operational yet. 

Most current ed-tech solutions in India and elsewhere either reinforce the academic skills taught in schools and/or offer a fully online experience that has been proven to be detrimental to child development. Mangola’s key innovation is the integration of offline guided play with an online app-based game. We are fusing aspects of guided play, social app design, and role-playing game systems into a unique ed-tech system.

We are creating and facilitating guided play scenarios via an interactive mobile app delivery system. Our mobile app integrates a variety of game design mechanisms from role-playing games. It also engages the wider family and has a unique async messaging system that allows online communication to drive the game forward, while activities are performed offline, away from the screen, and are designed to use simple materials that families already have in the house.


Another unique feature of Mangola is that our game design creates adult-child bonding opportunities. We encourage families to sign up all their members -- parents, grandparents, and extended family to participate in the game, guide and encourage children in their learning adventures. This offers quality time for grown-ups and children to connect over fun, creative, offline activities.

We are currently building a prototype and conducting small-scale user testing with 30 families. In the near term (1 year) our plan is to serve 9,000 primary school-aged children and their families in Kharghar, India. We plan to reach this target by partnering with local parent groups such as the Kharghar Moms Public Group. This would allow us to measure our impact and refine our product. 

Armed with a more refined product, we aim to reach 1.8 million primary school-aged children and their families in the Greater Mumbai Metro Region in the next five years. As one of the most densely populated cities in the world, expanding in the Mumbai Metro region would give Mangola access to a large number of users without having to add support in regional languages other than Marathi and Hindi. To achieve this user growth, we again plan to rely on parent groups on Facebook and WhatsApp combined with our in-app mechanics that encourage sharing in the adventure with family and friends.

In late 2020 we developed a user testing system on top of an existing third-party app to start testing user engagement with different types of learning activities. We enrolled 30 interested families who were willing to alpha-test the new experience and we’ve been issuing weekly activities and gathering qualitative and quantitative feedback around engagement, subject matter, age-appropriateness, etc. This has fed into system designs and a growing activity base.

Based on the feedback, we are now working on building a prototype that adds gamification to the learning activities we have already tested. We are simultaneously testing the game mechanics and activities in a series of live sessions with multiple families. We also interview families about their educational needs and perspectives.

Going forward, we will continue to interact closely with our target audience to develop a strong user feedback loop. We just formed a collaboration with the UCL Knowledge Lab to help establish a rigorous framework for evaluating the impact of Mangola.

Our mobile game application also has a number of user feedback and validation mechanisms built-in. Our game system has feedback points and a “Vassee Log” (multimedia diary, similar to a captain’s log). We are also using anonymized user activity tracking where we link events to Mixpanel and monitor both individual user journeys and aggregated conversion funnels.

1 full-time, 2 part-time, 2 independent contractors. 

Our two part-time co-founders are ready to go full-time as soon as we are able to offer them some compensation. 

We are a well-positioned team to deliver Mangola as envisioned because we recognize that our strength lies not only in the complementary skills we bring to the team but also in our ability to appreciate the power of this diversity, and work hard to leverage it in the interest of our common goal - equipping our children with skills they will need to thrive in the 21st century.

Purva, our team lead, was born and raised in a typical middle-class family in India. She is an MIT graduate who founded the Inceptive digital parenting platform and co-founded a Montessori preschool in San Francisco. She brings years of multidisciplinary project management and investment experience to Mangola.

James, our tech lead, is a software developer and serial entrepreneur. He was previously co-founder and CTO of Hazy, winner of the $1M Microsoft Prize for the best AI startup in Europe. He has co-founded 6 VC-funded startups, won a TED Prize, built the mass participation tools for Earth Hour, developed video publishing systems for Apple, and IDEO's social design platform, OpenIDEO.com. James is a father of two children.

Barnaby, our game design lead, has worked extensively in education, from postgraduate lecturing at the Royal College of Art to high school teaching at a Steiner School in Germany. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College. He is a committed and passionate board game designer and founder of the game design podcast, Loco Ludus. Barnaby is a father of three children.

Research shows that diverse teams of varying racial and ethnic makeup produce better results. They perform better financially, gain a competitive edge when recruiting top talent, and experience less employee turnover. While these benefits make diverse teams a must for any organization, for us it is also personal. Our team lead, Purva is an immigrant minority woman, and has faced (and continues to face) bias frequently, often more implicit than explicit.

Based on her experiences, we believe that to become a truly inclusive organization, we need to do more than just create a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Policy. We need to make diversity a strategic priority and then align resources behind that priority. We also realize that we can’t wait to become a 50 or 100 people organization to implement our DEI policy, we need to embrace it from the start, even though currently we are only a 3 person team. To that extend, here are a few things we will continue to do:

• Continuing to encourage open, honest, and multidirectional dialogue. 

• Offer ongoing training and education. One-off training sessions often don’t move the needle. Leading by example, repetition and exposure would help bring about positive change. 

• Ensuring pay equity, and being aware of and acknowledging a variety of religious and cultural holidays.  

Setting regular diversity audits. This applies to the Mangola team and who we hire, and also to the communities we serve.

Though our current and foremost barrier is financial, we are applying to Solve for several other reasons such as the MIT brand, alumni network, expert and peer support.


Purva has personally benefited in many ways from her association with MIT and understands that the value of the MIT brand would go a long way in securing funding, forming partnerships, and attracting users, especially in India where people look to the West for a stamp of approval. 

Additionally, the advice from the Solve associated faculty and industry partners is extremely crucial at this pre-seed stage of our venture. To have a true and meaningful impact, we need to develop and implement the appropriate impact measures from the start and analyze and iterate as we grow. This is where we believe the Solve team would help us tremendously. 

Our current primary partnership goals are as follows: 

• Help define our impact measurement framework.

• Help design a framework for how we combine with game scenarios and learning activities and potentially use AI to facilitate learning. 

• Help produce content to help parents understand the role of play facilitation and develop as play facilitators.

• Help expand the client base.

To that extent, it will be invaluable for us to form partnerships, have an advisory relationship or brand ambassadorship  with: 

• Dr. Eric Klopfer at MIT to help us improve our game mechanics and explore AI-driven play facilitation. 

• Dr. Kathy Hirsh Pasek at Temple Universityto help us ensure that our activities (content/curriculum) follow the principles of guided play and are educational. 

• Unicef India to help reach families through local centers. 

• Bollywood or Sports (mainly Cricket) celebrities to reach kids and their families.