Reflections on 2019
Looking back at 2019, Killer Snails had quite a year!
BioDive launch
We started the year with piloting BioDive in 27 states and ended the year with our first paying customers. There were thousands of children playingBioDive in between and their (and our!) excitement was palpable.
Residencies
Killer Snails took part in the TED Residency which culminated with our CEO giving a TED talk on using virtual reality to help children see what they can be. We were also accepted into the Small Business Administration’s Emerging Leaders program. This led to our being on our first Chinese Radio Station!
Conferences
We shared our work speaking at Games for Change- a truly inspirational conference held in New York City every summer, Games in Education- a teacher focused conference in Albany each year, and at the international Mobiles in Education Alliance conference in Washington DC. We ended the year speaking at a conference at the World Economic Forum! Each of these opportunities led to new friends we’re delighted to know.
Funded
We partnered with C&A Scientific to create a new tabletop game that includes a microscope! We began the design process in the beginning of the year, playtested it during the late spring, and finalized production at the end of the year. Come see it at Toy Fair 2020!
Awards
This summer we were thrilled to receive a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research award from the Institute of Educational Sciences. We’re building a new collaborative mobile virtual reality experience for middle school students and playtesting it with schools in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Our Chief Science Officer Dr. Mandë Holford received the prestigious 2019 Women of Discovery Humanity Award from the nonprofit WINGS WorldQuest, which recognizes and supports extraordinary women in science and exploration. In addition, Dr. Holford was selected as a 2020 Women inPower Fellow! Both of these honors speak to her innovative research and incredible work ethic. Finally, we were accepted into the Microsoft for Startups program and became Oculus Certified.
Overall, we are so thankful to everyone we met this year and we’re grateful to be on this journey to create impactful educational products to inspire a love of science!