A story that most great scientists and inventors have in common is the one where they started exploring, discovering, and feeding their curiosity while they were still kids. Startup company Piper believes that by providing curious kids a platform to tinker with technology, we are giving the future inventors and innovators their first step in “inventing the future”.
Their product, an educational computer kit, aims to help kids understand basic concepts in technology. The kit contains various hardwares, cables, and gadgets that kids are meant to tinker with in order to promote hands-on building for engagement and understanding.
Piper raised $2.1 million in a seed-funding round attended by investors that included Princeton University, Reach Capital, 500 Startups, FoundersXFund, Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn, and Makey Makey founder Jay Silver.
Co-founder Mark Pavlyukovskyy believes that teaching how technology works will help kids understand that technology is an empowering tool they can use and not just a convenient but complex array of devices that they consume. This is in line with Piper’s mission of turning kids into active users of technology instead of “passive consumers” .
