Do you remember the popular Bournvita advertisement where Kajol is quizzed by her little one but is unable to give the right answer?
Though this particular advertisement is for the brand’s promotion, it is a reflection of today’s children – about their constant quest for more answers.
Understanding how only attending classes and passing exams with good grades is not going to help children learn, Rohini Deepthi Natti and Pramod Ponnaluri came up with Kitki that stands for window in Telugu.
Their idea symbolises a window for knowledge for children.
The duo aims to do it through fun board games that resemble Snakes and Ladders and others that grew up playing.
Fun Learning
“Our aim was to make children experience what they are learning. We don’t want to focus on chapters taught in school. We follow simple methodology to teach them certain lessons related to the subjects. The games can be played by anyone who is over 10 years old,” explains 29-year-old Rohini.
Till now they have covered subjects geometry, chemistry and history.
“In chemistry, children can learn chemical formulae through a game called Operation Escape Evil where they have to rescue scientists from an island using a few chemical formulae. The board on history titled Samrat: Rise of The Delhi Sultanate takes you back to 12th century medieval India when Muhammad Ghori unravels his plans to take over India. Each player takes on the role of a king and completes his objectives to earn stars. The geometry board teaches them about new shapes,” she elaborates.
To help children discover the game, they also provide them with a ‘How to play’ video. The games can be played by children and also adults.
The make
They use 18*18 inches cardboard or plastic for the boards and children are also provided with all the equipment required to play the game. Rohini who worked as a graphic designer earlier came up this venture and shares that she lives her passion while designing these fun boards and that is what makes it look so good.
From personal experience
Most of us have questioned our parents and teachers about why we are learning something and these two youngsters want to give children an answer to that question.
“We felt that we have missed out on lot of the topics in our childhood only because we were not taught properly. This will help students have fun while playing the game and also teach them the concepts clearly,” she shares and points, “Once I started working, I noticed that there is a huge gap between what we are taught in school/college and what we have to work on once we enter the industry. Experiential learning can bridge that gap as it does not focus on one particular topic. It helps in overall development.”
Birth of the idea
The duo who had a passion to do something different in life rather than being stuck to their desk from 9 to 5 job have been working on this concept since 2012.
“Both of us left our jobs in 2012. We worked on the concept for quite some time and decided to launch it in January. Before this, we informed people about our concept through a crowd funding website which also helped us manage our production cost,” the ex-student of Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani - Hyderabad informs.
Thanks to social media and its high reach, the idea received appreciation from people abroad and more than 200 pre-orders were placed in just one month. About 40 others came from India.
They did not however just jump into the market. They conducted a number of trials in schools in the city. “We are also planning to expand our ideas to other subjects soon,” Rohini informs further.
Their products are available on Amazon, Ebay and on their own website, and soon will be available on Flipkart and Snapdeal.