E-liza Dolls: Dolls that teach girls how to code

In 2018 women made up only 28% of the STEM workforce. The Fortune 500 list was 6.6% women with only 2 black women listed. If we want real progress in STEM, we need diversity in the field otherwise powerful technology will be directed by a very small privileged group of people. STEM has the capacity to change the world but that won’t happen if the field is dominated by one type of person focused on very specific profit-oriented problems. If I want to change that we have to expose young children to this world through a lens of interests that they already have. We envision a future where women dominate every STEM field by changing the worldview of young girls through hardware and software. By creating a new generation of girls suited for a career in science, we begin to change the world, one girl at a time!

Our key product is the E-liza Doll! She is an 18’’ doll that comes with a built-in light-up programmable computer called an Arduino. We are specifically working with the Micro:bit board, and work closely with the Micro:bit foundation which builds the Arduino and creates and maintains the app. They have put me in touch with the manufacturers of the board and offered a bulk discount rate.  Young girls are exposed to the world of software and hardware through fun projects that come with the dolls. The E-liza Doll is a space engineer and each project or “experiment” utilizes a unique sensor and sets up a challenge that needs to be solved on the child’s home planet. Example projects include a truth detector that uses a heart pulse sensor, a dance-activated belt that changes based on how you dance, and more! The doll is coded through an easy-to-use iPad app and can be customized through code that gets uploaded via Bluetooth!

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQLSPJucx4

Our target population is girls ages 5-12, we have worked and talked to over 100 girls in that age range to identify the best solution that meets their needs. We have play-tested and asked for feedback at every step along the product design journey and are proud to say this product has been truly designed by little girls. Our doll and the corresponding projects have been a constantly emerging process and we are proud of how much it has changed from its original form due to the feedback we received from our toy testers! Our solution of coding a doll comes directly from the founder who noticed how disinterested little girls were with the current STEM toys on the market after doing volunteer work in the STEM space for years. This solution meets girls where they are and incorporates fun coding technology into toys (in this case dolls) that girls already like playing with, instead of forcing them to play with programmable robots or cars, etc that exist on the market. Our founder has even done studies at children's museums asking children what type of toy they would prefer to code and has found that 95% of boys aged 5-12 prefer to code a race car, and 76% of girls prefer to code a doll! This solution has been designed with girls in mind and in a follow-up study of testing the doll with girls at children’s museums, the founder found that parents report even a 15-minute interaction with the doll as encouraging children to be curious about coding and want to explore coding further!

As a Berkeley PhD student working in child development and artificial intelligence with the foremost leaders in the field such as Prof. Alison Gopnik and Prof. Trevor Darrell, my scope of intelligence is uniquely suited for this business. My expertise is exactly what the dolls represent, the intersection of childhood and technology. Prior to Berkeley I also worked with leaders in the field at MIT and Harvard where I first really began to think about this problem of diversity, since it so blatantly faced me every day. Seeing first-hand where technology is going given the people that are working on it, I know that if we were to increase the diversity of the people in the room we could make a huge impact, and seeing firsthand the importance of exposing children to these concepts at an early age through my research so it enters their hypothesis space and world view is also a unique insight I discovered through my years of research with children. I also spent time in Americorps and Boys and Girls Clubs teaching children STEM concepts for years and I truly see the need for a product that any child can use without the need of having tech parents. 

E-liza Dolls have a very strong team in place that is building and designing the product. 

Lisa Winter, our head of manufacturing, has over 25 years of experience designing and building robots. She has competed in Robot Wars and BattleBots competitions since 1996 and is currently a judge on Discovery's BattleBots. Lisa was named one of the top 25 women in robotics you need to know about by Robohub. She has lived in China and worked at Sproutling (acquired by Mattel) on their manufacturing line. 

Brian Eastman our mechanical engineer has over 15 years of experience highlighting lab automation, medical devices and consumables, biotech instruments, life-science, point-of-care diagnostic disposables, and consumer electronics industries working at Abbott and several others. 

David Williams has over 35 years of hardware experience and has worked at Microsoft and Borland Software. He specializes in small-scale robotics engineering.

Our board boasts Andrew Brase who taught the famous Toy Design course at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and has designed toys for companies such as Mattel and more. Rupi Kaur the New York Times bestselling author and even Anca Dragan a professor at UC Berkeley specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence.

We have a physical product that is currently being re-designed for manufacturing and has been tested on over 100 girls in the San Francisco area. 

E-liza Dolls faces several challenges, first being market barriers. Launching and designing a hardware children’s toy has extreme challenges including legal challenges. We are  applying to the challenge because we are most excited about the following aspects of the 6-month program; Access to a network of resource partners across industries and sectors and help with our business model and scaling. The only way our product will have impact is if we are able to scale and we would really benefit from mentorship and advice in this domain. The other main issue we face involves our founders lack of business experience, as we struggle to fundraise in this difficult financial climate having help and guidance designing a business plan would be immensely helpful!

Our team lead Eliza Kosoy has been involved in the space of community outreach for girls in STEM for over 12 years! She has hosted free STEM outreach events in the Boston area at MIT and the Boys and Girls Club of Allston (before it shut down), her hometown of Albany NY at the local library in Clifton Park as well as the library in Ellenville NY. It is in organizing these events for children to learn how to code where our founder Eliza first realized the gap between the tools for teaching boys and girls. During her PhD work at UC Berkeley, Eliza conducted research at local children’s museums such as the Bay Area Discovery Museum and the Lawrence Hall of Science. She is deeply enthralled in the STEM and Maker communities as well.

Our solution is innovative because there is nothing like it on the market. We have even filed a provisional utility patent on our unique concept. While there are several coding toys on the market they are all essentially created to target little boys and there are none that are exclusively designed for girls. What makes our product so special is that we have studied the play patterns of young girls to ensure we built something they actually want to play with that also encourages play with hardware and coding. Our special sauce is our founder who has a unique background as a Berkeley PhD student working in child development and artificial intelligence with the foremost leaders in the field such as Prof. Alison Gopnik and Prof. Trevor Darrell. Her scope of intelligence is uniquely suited for this business. Her expertise is exactly what E-liza Dolls represent, the intersection of childhood and technology. Prior to Berkeley she worked with leaders in the field at MIT and Harvard where she first really began to think about this problem of diversity, since it so blatantly faced her everyday. Seeing first hand where technology is going given the people that are working on it, she knew that if we were to increase the diversity of the people in the room we could make a huge impact, and seeing first hand the importance of exposing children to these concepts at an early age through her research so it enters their hypothesis space and world view is also a unique insight she discovered through her years of research with children. She has also spent time in Americorps and Boys and Girls clubs teaching children STEM concepts for years and truly saw the need for a product that any child can use without the need of having tech parents.

We first start with a D2C model where we sell the product D2C through our Kickstarter campaign and on our website and Amazon. We are working on sourcing a factory in Shenzhen which would drive the cost down significantly by creating the dolls and purchasing the boards separately.  We have an aggressive social media distribution plan and plan to make YouTube content as well since 56% of kids 8-21 are watching youtube every day. Afterward, we would like to sell to coding camps such as Girls who code (40,000 alumni), Code.org (36 million students), Google Hour of Code and Black Girls Who Code. Once we have established a market need, we will aim for big box stores such as Target through their Forward Founders Program and hopefully Walmart or Kohl's. Our 5-year goal is to be a household brand associated with teaching young girls all things STEM! We want to be the better Barbie.

Since we are currently still pre-launch and sourcing our factory and manufacturing process we have a lot of room to investigate how to source sustainably. We are very interested in keeping our operation in the USA and would love to have help with this from the MIT Solve mentorship program. We are very open-minded about keeping our operation as sustainable as possible and hoping to learn more as we launch and expand.

Our solution is rooted in science and our founder's Ph.D. research at UC Berkeley. She has conducted several studies that show that young girls prefer to code a doll over other existing coding toys and that even a 15-minute interaction with the doll has a positive influence when she followed up with families they reported that their children were more curious about coding and computers. 

There is no other product in the market that does this and unfortunately, no one is really solving this problem today. There are several companies that shall remain nameless that advertise themselves are trying to bridge the STEM gap and claim to make toys that are designed to develop an early interest in engineering and confidence in problem-solving, but are unfortunately just building glorified arts and crafts projects that require no building and just decorating. Our approach is better because we actually introduce girls to these concepts instead of using them as a tactic to entice parents to buy our products. We are really trying to build diverse and fun projects that show not just software but hardware as well, in a way where creativity is limitless.

Our E-liza Doll is powered by a Micro:bit Arduino, which is a tiny programmable computer that lives in the chest of the doll and has a bluetooth chip on it that allows for it to be programmed via an app. This piece of hardware also connects to various sensors that we plan to include with the doll such as a heartbeat sensor, a distance sensor and a color detection sensor. By embedding this technology inside the doll we create a barrier for entry into hardware for girls as young as 5. The easy to use app interface allows girls to use block style coding to code the doll from a tablet or a phone and the code is sent via bluetooth to the doll, no cord or plugs required. It is battery operated and can be charged.

Core team: Elia Kosoy (founder), Lisa Winter (Manufacturing), Brian Eastman (Mechanical Engineer), David Williams (Hardware), and our intern Adrienne Fong.

Our Board members: Rupi Kaur (Creative), Anca Dragan (Robotics), Andrew Brase (Toy Design), Heather Day (Creative), Jennifer Pisansky (Operations).

The idea was born in 2018, we incorporated it into a DE corp in 2022. 

As a startup literally built to empower young girls to become leaders in STEM we take DEI very seriously. Our team is primarily women and we even helped our intern go from community college into UC Berkeley! We exist to help minorities and empower women and this is evident at every level of our company from our core team to our board. Our founder Eliza Kosoy is a first generation immigrant whose parents immigrated from Ukraine in 1991. She has spent her whole life dedicated to diversity and inclusion and founding this startup is another example of that. We are passionate about making our product accessible and hope to partner with organizations that can help us get our product into the hands of less privileged girls all over the world. We are also working on creating a “gift a doll” pilot program when we launch the Kickstarter which allows those who can't afford the doll to get on a wishlist and allow anyone to donate a doll to people off the wishlist.

The market size is ripe for a product such as ours. US Census data reports 28 million children aged 5-11 living in the United States, assuming half of them are girls, that leaves 14M girls in the United States in our target age range that we hope to target with our product. The U.S. market size for the total toy industry is approximately $27 billion. In 2019 the market for doll sales was about 3.2B. Market reports suggest that STEM toys are trending, Technavio's analysts have predicted that the STEM toys market will grow by 5% by 2023. Lastly, Toy Fair (The largest toy trade show in the Western hemisphere) 2019 reported “Inspirational and Aspirational Play” toys as a growing trend. There is a growing trend of toys, games, and activities that can help prepare and inspire kids for the future. 

We first start with a D2C model where we sell the product D2C through our Kickstarter campaign and on our website and Amazon. We have an aggressive social media distribution plan and plan to make YouTube content as well since 56% of kids 8-21 are watching youtube every day. Afterward, we would like to sell to coding camps such as Girls who code (40,000 alumni), Code.org (36 million students), Google Hour of Code, and Black Girls Who Code. Once we have established a market need, we will aim for big box stores Such as Target through their Forward Founders Program and hopefully Walmart and Kohls. As mentioned above, one of the key prizes we hope to utilize it to help with our business model through the MIT Solve mentorship program, specifically the “learning and development modules aimed at refining your business model, theory of change, and plans for scaling.”

We have a dual phase plan for becoming financially sustainable. Phase 1: Launch direct to consumer (D2C) via Kickstarter and our personal website. Phase 2: Expansion to monthly subscription model and open up to big box retailers. Current strategy is to launch with the D2C model and introduce to big box retail partners starting year 2. Over time, the plan is to have big box sales eclipse D2C sales.Our assumptions include that a 1/3 of buyers will add subscriptions and that girls will keep subscriptions for 5 years before maturing out of doll play. Our subscription model will allow us to keep costs lean and engagement rates high, each monthly box will feature a new compatible sensor which will unlock new projects and play possibilities!

• Jericho Innovation Prize 2019

• Amber Women’s small business Grant 2020

• Selected top 5 finalists in the Retailers United pitch competition

• Z-fellows cohort awardee 

• Selected for TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 top 100 start-up

• Featured Press: TechCrunch “Meet E-liza Dolls, the startup that building dolls to teach girls how to code” and the SF Standard selected us as a “Top 7 mind-blowing startup at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022”

• Received pre-seed investment from AIX Ventures  (Richard Socher, Chris Manning, Pieter Abbeel, Anthony Goldbloom)