Model and Strategy
VersaMe’s purpose is to encourage parents to engage more with their children. Product 1, the patent pending Starling, is the 1st wearable education device for babies that counts words and provides feedback in real time. This project will use Starlings with low-income families to increase child-directed speech.
Imagine a device that measures parent-child engagement, provides encouraging feedback and best practice suggestions. Imagine if a social worker, nurse, or non-profit can actually tell how many words a child hears each day. All without compromising a child’s safety or a family’s privacy. That’s the Starling.
Increasing child-directed talk during life’s earliest years is an amazing opportunity that’s never been successfully scaled. Using the Starling, we want to prove it is possible to improve efficacy measures and increase the impact of existing in-person intervention programs. This is the first step to building a nationwide program using Starlings to close the opportunity gap.
Impact
VersaMe is a for-profit company that intends to sell technology directly to high income families who can afford to invest in their children’s education. While the word gap is correlated with income, there are still a large number of high-income families who do not interact enough with their children. Establishing a consumer base will make our organization a sustainable entity that can reinvest in research and development in perpetuity.
At the same time, our entire team is passionate about our social mission and our opportunity to profoundly impact the lives of millions of low-income children through our non-profit arm. The Starling can improve the effectiveness of existing interventions for two reasons. First, it precisely targets and encourages parent-child verbal engagement. Second, by measuring parent-child engagement, the Starling provides an opportunity for individual practitioners (social workers, nurses, etc) to better understand what’s happening in a child’s day without invading family’s privacy (it does not record any audio).
Leadership
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Chris Boggiano
CTO
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Jon Boggiano
CEO
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Nicky Boyd
CPO