Kindoma: Bridging Distance Using Shared Family Storytime – May 8, 2013

kindoma600Kindoma: Bridging Distance Using Shared Family Storytime
Increasingly, families are struggling with distance; in the US alone, half of grandparents live over 200 miles away from their grandchildren. In this talk, we will summarize our field research on how families with young children cope with distance and how the technologies they use both help and fall short. We’ll use the findings from this fieldwork to motivate a multi-year exploration in enabling families to read books together at a distance. We’ll give an overview of the design and evaluation of 3 research prototypes: Family Story Play (mobile + physical books), Story Visit (web), and People in Books (depth camera). The talk will culminate in a discussion on how we’ve commercialized these ideas at Kindoma with the launch of our Kindoma Storytime app for the iPad.

Rafael ‘Tico’ Ballagas, Co-founder & CEO of Kindoma (http://www.kindoma.com)
Dr. Rafael ‘Tico’ Ballagas is the Co-founder & CEO of Kindoma where he is creating products to connect children with their long distance loved ones through reading activities. Before Kindoma, Tico was at Nokia Research Center where he lead the research and development of a multi-year exploration of technologies to help families read books together at a distance (see http://connectedreading.com). He earned his Doctorate in computer science at RWTH Aachen University in Germany with a focus on improving the design of pervasive computing experiences, and culminating in the creation of REXplorer, a pervasive game for young tourists that “sounds like magic” (NY Times). He completed his B.S. with highest honors in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, and M.S. from Stanford University.

Location:
Qualcomm Inc. Building B
3165 Kifer Road Santa Clara, CA 95051-0804

Agenda:
6:30 PM Registration and Networking
7:00 PM -8:40 PM Presentations

Price:
$20 at the door for non-SVForum members unless you pre-register.
No charge for SVForum members
For this month only, for members and non-members, there is no cost to attend – if you pre-register. Click here to pre-register. If you do not pre-register, the cost to attend is $20.00 at the door. Thank you.