Q & A with Mitch Rosenberg of KinderLab Robotics

Social Innovation Forum (SIF) Impact Investing Fellow Marissa Silapaswan interviewed KinderLab Robotics co-founder and CEO Mitch Rosenberg about entrepreneurship, STEM education for young children, and what he learned about impact investing in the SIF Social Business Accelerator.

Tell me a little about your background. What were you doing before KinderLab Robotics?

I have always been interested in science and technology. I studied engineering for my bachelor’s and master’s. For the first half of my career, I was a design engineer and engineering manager. I eventually found that the dynamics of a company were more interesting to me than the underlying technology used to create its product. I gradually moved away from engineering to product management and marketing. Since then I’ve worked with continuous and disruptive technologies that really change the way things are done. I participated in the early days of videoconferencing and document security and I’ve worked at four robotics companies.

What inspired you to start KinderLab?

I was happily working at a large and interesting robotics firm in Boston. I was not looking for something else to do. In talks with my current co-founder, Marina, I found out that she could really use some help starting a company around her research. I said I would be happy to help her out, but that I didn’t really want to leave my job. Marina described her research into how children learn STEM, and I realized that she had a really interesting idea and a novel approach. I offered to help her out part time for free, but she said that she really needed someone full time. Eventually Amazon bought a company I had been working at which gave me some cash cushion, so I signed up. Together, Marina and I teamed up to create KinderLab Robotics.

The idea that investors would band together to help each other and social entrepreneurs in their quest for both social and financial returns was extremely attractive. 

Can you describe what your company’s “KIBO” product is?

KIBO is the name for our robot kit. With KIBO, young children (as young as 4-7 years old) build, decorate, run and program their own robots. The product is programmed with tangible manipulatives (blocks) instead of screens and keyboards. This tangible programming technique is perfect for 4-7 year old kids, who have not yet developed the sophistication and abstract reasoning necessary for software. By coming up with a way to make an abstract concept like a line of code into a tangible concept, we’ve been able to make very sophisticated ideas accessible at a young age.

How is a line of code represented tangibly for young children?

Each line of code is represented by a wooden block with pictures on it. Children peg the blocks together into a sequence, which is their program. Then they use the barcode scanner built into the KIBO body to scan the barcodes on each block—that’s how the program is entered into the robot.

Why does your company focus on ages 4-7?

Studies have shown that introducing difficult concepts (like those involved in STEM) at an early age have big economic benefits. Exposing kids to STEM at an early age is more efficient in imparting excitement and information when compared to education at a later age. Research has shown that children start forming a clear picture of their identities by age 8. If that identity doesn’t include experience, confidence, curiosity, and excitement in STEM, then it becomes more difficult for children to develop these attitudes later on.

Also, KinderLab understands that kids aren’t the only part of this equation. We’ve also developed teaching materials for parents and teachers, including a suite of teacher training, curricula, games, and assessment workbooks. These materials are part of the products we sell, even though they are not what the kids see.

What were some initial milestones for the company?

Well, early on Marina and I received a grant from the National Science Foundation to move the company from the prototype stage to the manufacturing stage. We also ran a Kickstarter and used its proceeds to create the necessary manufacturing tools and molds. These grants were major milestones for us.

We’ve also gotten a lot of media attention in the past year. A major milestone occurred when the Economist published an article about our KIBO product. This changed our order volume by a by a sustained factor of two. We were then able to close a large deal with the government of Singapore to test the impact of our KIBO products on student learning. The test will be carried out in 10% of Singapore’s elementary schools. If the test proves that the product enables mastery of STEM concepts and increased curiosity and engagement, the product will roll out to all of Singapore’s elementary schools.

What are next steps for KinderLab?

Just to name a few, we want to extend the usefulness of the product by enabling teachers and students to access more material through the KIBO platform. We have developed three new modules and a tool for teachers to assess the progress that their students have made. Our intention is also to raise a seed round of capital to expand outbound marketing and sales.

What is your long-term vision for the company?

Our mission is universal STEM literacy, which will help future generations do meaningful work, as well as make better societal decisions about issues that require STEM thinking. Today, many growing fields require both comfort and understanding in at least one of the four areas of STEM. We want to make it easier for kids who may not have access to STEM concepts to become engaged and get a solid understanding of the material so they can access STEM careers and a higher quality of life. We also hope to help close the STEM achievement gap between men and women, and between people of different ethnic backgrounds. By doing so, we think we can also contribute to reducing overall income inequality.

Finally, we really feel that broader stem literacy will result in better societal decisions. STEM is often at the basis of the most fundamental questions facing our society, and we need citizens that are capable of informed decisions that positively shape our collective future.

Who is an entrepreneur that you look up to?

I would say that I look up to Mick Mountz, the founder of Kiva Systems. Unlike many brilliant guys, he’s a pretty humble person. He became an entrepreneur by recognizing a serious problem in business, which is how to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver goods from a warehouse to a customer. He was doggedly persistent in building a company with a creative and positive culture despite challenges in financing, engineering, and growth. I believe that it was key for him to start with an actual, real-world problem, because in doing so he came up with a solution that was perfectly aligned to that problem. In other words, he’s the opposite of too many of today’s entrepreneurs who are peddling technically sophisticated products that are in search of problems to solve.

Can you tell me a little about what drew you to Social Innovation Forum?

I was drawn by the opportunity to meet investors that care about more than just bottom line returns. This was a concept that I had never encountered before, despite being fairly experienced in the business world. The idea that investors would band together to help each other and social entrepreneurs in their quest for both social and financial returns was extremely attractive. During my time at SIF so far, I have truly learned a lot about this method of financing through my mentors and various speakers.

About the Author

Marissa Silapaswan was the Social Innovation Forum’s Impact Investing Fellow from October 2015 – April 2016. In this role, she worked closely with SIF’s Executive Director to support the Social Business Accelerator program, including conducting outreach and recruitment, managing a network of mentors, and coordinating meetings, workshops, and events.