From being an employee to owning an island – a true story.

Yep, you read it right – From being an employee back in 2008, I now own an island!

Let me introduce myself, I run an award-winning learning games company called Callystro (www.callystro.com) along with my partners. For the last 6 years, my partners and I have been experimenting with using games and activities to make learning engaging and effective.  Our first attempt was a fun learning portal for preschoolers, which was acquired by a leading education company in India. We then shifted focus to higher grades.

So what does all this have to do with an island?

Okay, the island in question is called Mapoosa (which is open to tourists now, by the way), the details of which can be found here: www.mapoosa.com.

OK, so it is not like Sir Branson’s Necker, but pretty close – it is a virtual island. Mapoosa is a fun island where curriculum (NCERT) aligned Maths and Science topics are presented to children in the form of games and activities. Children could explore a mysterious land, have fun and learn classroom concepts without the pressures associated with traditional learning methods. Parents, on the other hand, could track the progress of their child through the Parent Dashboard. Mapoosa was launched in October 2013, currently has more than 110 Maths/Science games covering Grades 1 – 6, and soon will have more than 250 activities covering Grades 6 and 7 as well.

All this is fine, but can games really teach?

This is a question we get a lot, and one that we had set out to answer ourselves. The short answer is – an emphatic YES. Why? Because games hold a child’s attention better, require a child to apply concepts and therefore make the learning more ‘sticky’. We did a study ourselves with a set of 60 children belonging to Grades 3 and 4 (through a pre-test, exposure to our games and post test) – More than 80% of the children showed improvement in concept understanding, and the average % improvement in scores was more than 18%!

It is also no wonder that big names are tapping into the power of games to make education effective. (Example, See articles: Gates Foundation sponsors game-based learning , Zynga To Launch Learning Games Accelerator)

How is Mapoosa different from other game based learning sites?

Most learning games sites either offer games for children in the lower age groups (preschool, grades 1/2/3) or contain random games for different grades. Mapoosa follows a structured curriculum, is based on the national standards (NCERT), and covers grades 1 – 8. Mapoosa combines deep learning with real entertainment.

So what do you want from the Rodinhooders?

I apologize if this turned out to be more of a marketing pitch than a rags-to-riches story that the subject line alluded to, but I hope it shares some useful information as well.

I invite all Rodinhooders to take their young ones to Mapoosa this Christmas season, and tell us how you like the place. We are committed to improving learning and your feedback will go a long way in helping us achieve our goal.

You could leave your comments here, or send us a note at mapoosa [at] callystro dot com.

Aside: As with probably most digital entrepreneurship stories in India, this too has a small connection with Alok. In my previous venture, I had met Alok and Mahesh briefly to get some inputs on marketing our preschool offering. That brief meeting spurred me on to do bigger things, and Mahesh later helped me during the technology selection stage for Mapoosa as well. Special thanks to both!