Gen Y & Edutainment

I wrote a piece called Affluenza about 2 years back, discussing the spending habits of Generation Y, and the opportunity that might present for Edutainment products.

Generation Y has since evolved to become a very important marketing target, especially because they are hugely reachable. Gen Y is the largest generation in U.S. history. There are 76 Million of them. Gen Y is the first generation to grow up immersed in technology and Internet, especially with the advent of social media. They have spent endless hours in Second Life, Neopets, and such.

Ofcourse, there are subsegments within the 76 Million. The Affluenza segment is spoilt and dysfunctional. At the same time, huge numbers of non-college-educated parents are sending a child to a top school like MIT or Stanford. Kids from small rural towns in Washington and Alabama find themselves amidst incredible opportunities as a result. And then, there are the talented kids like Austin and Arianna who are growing up amidst tremendous wealth and opportunity, but instead of being misguided, they are mentored to succeed by parents who are themselves highly technology savvy.

Presumably, Generation Y will produce entrepreneurship of a scale unknown before, since the media has created such hype around entrepreneurship success and role models. These entrepreneurs, I hope, will put to use some of their social networking experience to invent a different mode of educating children – a mode far more creative, immersive, inspiring and engaging than what we grew up with.

A great example is Anshul Samar, the 13-year old Founder and CEO of Elementeo on whom Venture Beat did a nice article recently.

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Anshul created a fantasy role playing game that combines the rapturous teenage joys of competition and carnage with the exciting properties of the periodic table of chemical elements.

Sulfur – Elementeo Card DeckHere’s how the game works: You command an army of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts — represented within a 66-card deck. Your opponent has his own deck with the same number of cards. Your goal is to battle your competitor and reduce his IQ down to zero. Pit your oxygen card against your opponent’s iron card, for example, and you learn that you create rust. Score one for oxygen. Kind of like rock-paper-scissors, but with chemicals, dice and 66 impressively illustrated cards featuring monster-themed caricatures of chemicals.

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Indeed, this would have been my preferred mode of learning Chemistry, not the drudgery I went through.

There is so much more opportunity for creating Edutainment that borrow the concepts of social media and multi-player games, and really and truly change the world.

Young entrepreneurs and Venture Capital – I hope the twain shall meet!

Related Reading:
Segments & Lifestyles Research Reports on College Kids, Teenagers, Pre-Teens.