Nestling - Carenting Early Education SEL App

What if, despite our best intentions, we were preparing our young children to be successful in a world that no longer exists?  The Information Age is rapidly advancing to the Age of Wisdom, and yet, many children continue to be educated with the strategies that were designed for the Industrial Age.

Nestling - a digital early childhood developmental application and secure sharing tool - is a child-centered planner, sharing tool, developmentally appropriate practices curriculum and expert advice resource for children from age 0-5 years of age.

Nestling's mission to equip all "Carents" (those who regularly influence a child's early development) with essential tools, scientifically proven strategies and expert feedback and assessment to empower, guide, and design a child-centered plan that is easy to implement across the transfer from parent to caregiver, so that every child is given the opportunity to cultivate strong roots to grow, and wings to soar!

Early childhood education often mimics the preparation a child is expected to need in elementary school and beyond, and yet, the brain is actually developing far more crucial neural pathways from birth through age 5 than it will during any other time in a child's development.  It is during this crucial time period that we must focus to lay down the "superhighway" of a child's social-emotional development skills, in order to best prepare children for multi-generational impact as humanity evolves.

Nestling is designed to equip, empower and employ scientifically proven tools, tips and strategies to best develop very young children's brains with the neural pathways that will best prepare them for the challenges, opportunities and unique needs that humanity will face in the 21st Century, and beyond.  

Please click on the link below to a PowerPoint presentation offering further explanation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xq-El3I4C0sgPgMCyoSLLOJDCysPc8pD/view?usp=sharing

Nestling will empower all parents and caregivers with a platform to curate, manage and employ consistently applied and scientifically based tools, strategies and expert guidance on the best methods to develop children aged 0-5 with essential life skills.

In an era where many parents prefer to search the internet for parenting guidance, Nestling will put the power into the hands of those most influential in a child's early development by providing the tool for consistently applied, expertly designed strategies to lay the foundation for a child's social-emotional development.

Because consistent application of guidance is the best method to enhance a child's learning, parents and caregivers will be able to collaborate and have full-spectrum knowledge and guidance for a child's particular needs, developmental readiness, and family practices designed to enhance early brain development of the skills the will be most useful and needed in the dawn and evolution of the Age of Wisdom.

Nestling has conducted hundreds of parent and caregiver empathy interviews, as well as dozens of employer interview, through which we have learned that the primary skills that are most desired among parents and in the current workplace are so-called, "soft" skills, such as empathy, creativity, compassion, problem-solving, resilience and self-awareness.  These are precisely the skills that a very young child is most apt to begin the crucial foundational neural pathways prior to starting traditional elementary school.  Therefore, providing "Carents" with these tools, strategies and guidance when a child is most capable of developing the foundational roots to develop these skills is at the core of Nestling's mission.

Nestling is a child-centered planning and resource tool that overlays with common calendaring and messaging applications, providing a "Family Hub" tool, offering daily prompts, links to expert advice and developmentally appropriate practices to enhance a child's social-emotional and executive functioning skills.  

Nestling integrates with smart speakers to enable Carents ready access to tips, strategies and tools, while allowing each to focus on the child - not the device.  Carents can easily access expert advice from carefully curated child development experts.  

Nestling allows parents to select different levels of access to stored data, milestones, and the child's family plan, depending upon the parent's need and desires to share with the other caregivers.  

Nestling provides a singular, consistent approach, as Carents are joined together on one platform to provide each child with a common plan for foundation-building and appropriate development.

Nestling creates the first two-way communication tool that stems first from a child's most influential teacher - the parent - to other caregivers.  Nestling recognizes that a parent, including whatever adult that is spending the majority of time with a child - is that child's primary and most influential teacher and early childhood educator.  

Nestling is unique in that it empowers primary caregivers ("Carents") with a consistent communication, collaboration and assessment tool, all focused on the essential skills that are being developed in a young child's brain.

Nestling is designed to overlay onto existing platforms, so that all caregivers can obtain access to a child-centered plan, enabling consistent application of proven, scientifically-based, developmentally appropriate practices designed to cultivate essential social-emotional, 21st Century skill development.

Nestling is based upon a digitally accessed application, that integrates scheduling features, daily prompts and progressive curriculum challenges, assessment tools and curated expert guidance.

Enhancements include expanding into non-English language translations, on-demand experts, digital "field trips," community exchange boards and integrated physical and augmented reality tools to further enhance learning acquisition.

Twenty-first century skills are the competencies that the world's children will need to cultivate in order to be successful in today's social structure.  These skills are uniquely human, in that they are difficult, if not impossible for machines, AI and robots to be able to replace with effectiveness.  Therefore, these skills, which are best cultivated from birth through age five, are arguably the most crucial to develop by every child's most influential teachers.

Many experts have sounded the alarm that our current models of education are ill-preparing our future legacy (see, e.g., Ananiandou, K., & Claro, M., "21st Century Skills and Competencies for New Millenium Learners," OECD Education Working Papers, No. 41. 2009; and Kivunja, C., "A Pedagogical Shift from Vygotskyian Social Constructivism to Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Digital Connectivism," Journal of Higher Education, 2014.

At Roots to Wings (founder of Nestling), we have worked with more than 1,000 children and families each year, adapting the practices of experts such as Dr. Jana ("Toddler Brain"), Dr. Daniel Siegel ("Whole Brain Child") and Sean Covey ("7 Habits of Happy Kids") into easy to implement daily rituals, practices and routines to provide for a consistent, universally applied and scientifically proven approach to developing resilient, growth-mindset oriented leaders of the future.

Nestling is moving from concept to development in 2019.  We have gathered data, experts and tech consultants who have established success and prestige in their related fields.  Our intent is to pilot our B to C app within our existing preschools in 2020 (currently serving 350 students), then focus on expanding to our network of sister preschools (400+ large preschools) and other early childhood providers, family networks and community programs (United Way, homeless family support networks, Leader in Me schools) in 2021, and expand offerings outside of the United States as quickly thereafter as feasible.

Dr. Laura Jana, one of our partners in the development of Nestling, has designed easy-to-implement "QI" skills that are specifically geared to cultivate, nourish and nurture these uniquely human skills.  Her TEDx talk, "Six Skills Every Child Will Need to Succeed in the 21st Century" has amassed more than 176,000 views, and has launched the movement to equip all who nurture children with the tools and strategies best designed for a developing young brain.

Big picture dreams include finding an appropriate media-based partner to expand our impact into video outlets (public broadcasts, YouTube channels, PBS, etc.).  Ideas include partnering with Sesame Workshop, The Fred Rogers Center and/or PBS Kids.  Also on the horizon is a digital "book" based on child-friendly characters that will include content that intuitively ages up with the development of the child, enabling caregivers to continue the lessons at home, and engaging children and Carents from a place of comfort and confidence.  Other ideas include a "Babble Box" subscription that would include specifically tailored manipulatives and tools to further learning.  

Finally, our Corporate Social Responsibility platform seeks to parnter with the United Way and/or the National Coalition for the Homeless to extend FREE tools to at risk youth, and those who care for them, to help end the cycle of poverty, and prepare all children to achieve their destiny.

Technical Barriers:  Developing a high-functioning app that will integrate with existing, commonly used parent and caregiver tools (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Droid).

Financial Barriers:  Access to adequate funding as more fully specified in the attached Pitch Deck to fully develop, market, establish partners and launch a viable prototype.

Experts:  While we have some experts on board, we are looking to collaborate with more experts so that we can share their tools that were primarily designed for academia with the broader public, and reformat into terminology easily understood by all parents and caregivers.

Cultural:  We recognize that there are many family models, and want to design an app that has a non-biased approach to advising and supporting families of all types, so that we can have the best opportunity to influence young child brain development at a very early age.

Partners:  We aspire to finding a suitable partner to further develop deep and wide-ranging roots into the many segments of society around the world (Sesame Workshop, PBS Kids, United Way, Fred Rogers Center, etc.).

In order to address these challenges, we have been refining our intended product solution, attending conferences where we encounter people of influence in our arena, collaborating with like-minded experts who wish to have similar impacts, growing our team of employees and consultants, and honing our messaging by speaking publicly about our vision, mission and guiding principles at education conferences such as EdSurge, Zero to Three, SXSW EDU, TEDx and local Ed Tech meetups. We have already attracted the attention of MIT Solve's personnel at the SXSW EDU conference this past March, and also pitched the pre-concept and received the 1st place award at the SWEDU/Techstars Start Up Conference in 2018.

Nestling is the offspring of Roots to Wings, a parent company founded by Beth Deasy that is dedicated to enhancing the lives of all young children.  Nestling will be certified as a "B Corporation," and will include in its charter documents a measurable "give" to at-risk and needy populations within the communities in our reach.

Currently, we have 4 full employees, two hired consultants, and one subject matter expert working to develop and launch Nestling.

As early-childhood experts having served tens of thousands of very young children over three decades in the preschool arena, we are uniquely skilled with the tools to bridge the gap between parents, those who also care for and educate very young children, and the experts who develop the best developmentally appropriate practices.

Collectively, our full time staff has more than 65 years of experience working in the early childhood arena, and our skill set expands from curriculum development and design, coaching developmentally appropriate strategies, legislative collaboration, leadership development, product design and marketing, parent advice, public speaking, legal entity formation and governance, community building, data organization and financial management.  

We have established relationships with skilled education technology software and application tool developers to partner with us in the pilot production.

SWEDU/Tech Stars - coaching to develop pilot app

Flyer Connect - family to school engagement tool - technical expertise

Franklin Covey - Leader in Me - designing curriculum for preschool implementation and possible parent engagement tool

(Desired Partner) Gary Community Investments - submitting Early Childhood Innovation Idea

We believe that MIT Solve will provide us with the access to the best thinkers and problem solvers in the technology arena who can pair up with our early childhood expertise to enable us to design a robust, secure and viable digital tool that has the potential to expand from its initial proposed use into a fully-fledged early childhood development expert toolkit, communication platform and dialogue solution for any Carent providing care, nurturing and education to very young children.

Sesame Workshop and/or PBS Kids- provide specific, 21st Century skill tools in a digital platform, interactive for parents and children, with assessment tools, suggested enhancements, and further Carent understanding of the early brain development.

United Way - provide tool at low to no cost to at risk parents and caregivers.

Google Education - work in tandem to create "field trips" and other AI/AR tools for educarers to use through digital platform.

Foundational Outreach - Bill & Melinda Gates, Chan Zuckerberg Foundation, and/or Gary Community Investments. 

Nestling is designed to empower parents and caregivers as the first and most influential teachers in a child's life.  Nestling uses technology that most women/mothers have - a mobile phone or device - to equip, engage and inform women and children with strategies, tools and expert advice to equip all children with 21st Century skills.  Nestling will meet mothers and caregivers where they are - and provide a platform that will allow them to cultivate and nurture every child's roots for a stronger foundation toward success.  When properly informed, mothers feel empowered, children are rooted, and humanity launches forward on our trajectory toward the future.