Have you felt something like this?
At school, you see no point in putting in the effort when tasks that are boring or too easy. Yes, boredom is part of life and it affects everyone. But chronic boredom — having to spend hours every day doing tasks that you could do two or three years ago — is something else.
You seem to be different from other children in your class — so you feel disconnected and lonely. And yes, loneliness is also part of life sometimes. But some gifted children feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness. They feel like they will be lonely for the rest of their lives.
At home, there are fireworks. You have a child whose head is full of big ideas and questions — and the body feels full of big emotions that they struggle to control. There is screaming, there is crying, there is hitting. As a parent, you might feel totally at a loss — you’re not sure what is going on with the child, you worry that if this continues, this might tear your family apart.
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These are scenarios we have heard from parents of young gifted children recently. And to be fair, these problems usually can be solved, especially if the family has extra resources and happens to live in the right location. In bigger cities there are high quality enrichment programs, where children get the stimulation they need and can find true peers. But these programs can be expensive. Coaching and therapy are also available but can be pretty expensive.
For the majority of young gifted children around the world, these solutions do not exist. There are nearly 17 million gifted children aged 6-12 around the world. For 85% of them, the solutions (enrichment programs, coaching, etc.) are too expensive or too far.
This is why we are building Deep, a new digital platform where young gifted and curious children can work on meaningful projects together with their friends. A lot of technology nowadays is for individual, passive consumption; but we are building for an active, creative, social process.
We are starting small but our vision is big.
Right now, kids explore interesting topics on Deep and make their own amazing books. We have seen children in the creative ‘flow’, some of the books they’ve made have been read 10+ times by themselves and their friends. We are now expanding the number of children testing Deep (see www.deep.ist).
Our medium term goal is to design a digital learning environment with 50-60 meaningful projects, built on Montessori values. This is where children can do real projects related to the Universe (e.g. What would happen if gravity suddenly changed?), Nature (e.g. How do you survive where the sun never reaches?) and Humans (e.g. How did humans spread across the whole planet?). Children will find a spark to explore many interesting topics beyond their current interests.
Long term, we want to collaborate with, and strengthen the entire ecosystem of support for gifted children. This means, among other things, giving teachers access to high quality tools that allow for curriculum compacting and meaningful enrichment during regular school days, i.e. by freeing up time for quick learners to work on their personalised interests and well-designed projects.
At this stage, my co-founder Diego and I are looking for allies, partners and investors for this journey. If you want to find out more or get involved, please email me (artur@deep.ist).
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