KinderLab Robotics Selected for Social Innovation Forum’s 2016 Social Business Accelerator
WALTHAM, MA – January 31, 2016 – KinderLab Robotics, Inc., has been selected for the Social Innovation Forum’s 2016 Social Business Accelerator, a 12-week program designed to give social-purpose businesses access to knowledge, connections, and growth capital that generates both social and financial returns.
The Social Innovation Forum (SIF) selected KinderLab, along with 5 other finalists, from a pool of over 50 applicants through an intense and highly competitive screening process. These “Impact Entrepreneurs” will participate in workshops, guest speaker sessions, and one-on-one advising with mentors from the business and startup communities. The program will culminate with pitches to potential investors at SIF’s 4th annual Impact Investing Showcase on Thursday, April 7, 2016.
“Our business is based upon an educational and social mission of helping children to engage with technology and engineering in a positive, creative, and playful way,” said Mitch Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of KinderLab Robotics, Inc. “Our vision of STEM literacy for all children is a vital part of our business and inseparable from it. We are very happy to be recognized by SIF as an Impact Entrepreneur and we look forward to working with SIFs mentors and partners who also value this mission.”
“We are delighted to welcome our newest cohort of social impact businesses,” said SIF Executive Director Susan Musinsky. “These entrepreneurs have exciting business models that marry profitability with social good. We are excited to begin working with them to accelerate their growth.”
SIF launched its Social Business Accelerator four years ago in response to a growing interest in impact investing among both investors and philanthropists. To date, 18 businesses have gone through the accelerator and 50% have since received funding.
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About the Social Innovation Forum
The Social Innovation Forum (SIF) provides a unique combination of capacity building and network building to create positive social change in greater Boston. We actively connect supporters (funders, investors, and volunteers) and practitioners (nonprofit and social business leaders) to build productive relationships focused on growing social impact. Founded in 2003 as a program of Root Cause, SIF incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization in 2015. For more information, visit www.socialinnovationforum.org.
About KinderLab Robotics Inc.
KinderLab Robotics creates toys and educational tools that enable young children to learn critical technical, problem- solving, and cognitive skills in a developmentally appropriate and playful way. While STEM education products exist for middle- and high-school students, KinderLab uniquely fills a need for a critical population: children under the age of seven. KinderLab products are based on over 15 years of academic and field research into how young children learn foundational concepts in programming and engineering by integrating them into a multidisciplinary curriculum that includes literacy, the expressive arts and cultural studies. KinderLab Robotics is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was founded by Marina Umaschi Bers and Mitch Rosenberg in May 2013. The first KIBO prototype, KIWI, was created in the DevTech labs of Tufts University in 2008.
