June 29th, 2009 | Tags: Echoing Green, President Obama, Social Innovation, White House
Skill-Life was recently invited to the White House to attend an event with President Obama to highlight the extraordinary efforts in communities to solve some of our country’s toughest problems. The event will be in the East Room on Tuesday, June 30th.
The Office of Social Innovation is set up under the Domestic Policy Council, the body that coordinates domestic policy making in the White House. It has been established to promote creative and effective ways to tackle social problems. The president is proposing $50-million in his 2010 budget for a social-innovation fund.
Felix Lloyd was invited to Tuesday’s event as one of a select group of Echoing Green fellows. To accelerate social change, Echoing Green invests in and supports outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions. Cheryl Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, was recently appointed to the position of vice-chair on the Commission of White House Fellowships.
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June 27th, 2009 | Tags: Felix Lloyd, Media, Press
Skill-Life President & CEO Felix Lloyd was featured in the June/July issue of TEQ Magazine. TEQ interviews Felix in its “Inter Face” segment. The interview — entitled “Building Skills: Felix Lloyd Launched Skill-Life to Help Tweens Develop Financial Literacy” — can be found here (pg. 26) and is pasted below.
TEQ Magazine June/July Issue
Building Skills: Felix Lloyd Launched Skill-Life to Help Tweens Develop Financial Literacy
You moved to Pittsburgh recently and are running your own company Skill Life. Tell us about how you wound up in Pittsburgh and what you’re up to with your company.
In September 2007, I received a fellowship from the New York based social venture fund Echoing Green. That fellowship would pay me $30,000 per year and health-care benefits to start Skill-Life, Inc. where we build virtual worlds in which tweens earn rewards by playing cool games that teach life skills including financial literacy, nutrition, and citizenship! We are launching the Beta of our first product, CentsCity, in July.
Once I took on Echoing Green’s investment and committed to going at this thing full-time, it didn’t take long for my wife, who works for Google, and I to figure out that $30,000 per year wouldn’t get too far in San Francisco. So, we looked for other cities where Google had offices. We were searching for a place that had a low cost-of-living and, most importantly, significant resources to start an entertainment technology company. Three days after our wedding, we made our second trip to Pittsburgh, in a Uhaul truck.
What’s it been like building your company in a tough economy?
Skill-Life really reached the world in October as we completed our participation in Innovation Works AlphaLab. By that time, the tough economy was already quite clearly upon us. It’s simply been the reality with which my partner, Todd Waits, and I have been confronted. We can’t recall with longing the boom days where investors had deeper pockets and stronger stomachs for early-stage ventures. Rather, we’ve kept down our burn and focused intensely on building a great product and business to ultimately make money while achieving social impact.
On a related note, I couldn’t be more confident that the tough economy has created a unique opportunity for Skill-Life. The first product built on our platform, CentsCity, teaches kids financial skills. The need and demand for such a resource is growing exponentially.
Previously, you were a teacher and were honored as a “Teacher of the Year” in D.C. What made you leave teaching and decide to start your own company?
I often say that I got my first masters degree by teaching 7th graders Civics and Government. My time as a classroom teacher was absolutely invaluable. After five years, however, I no longer saw tremendous opportunities for growth or impact in that role.
Recognition as teacher of the year included my being featured in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and other media. It led to my spearheading Microsoft’s Washington-to-Washington program, which connected my classroom in DC with a classroom in Seattle, Washington. I also became my school’s dean of students and one of its chief administrators. These experience opened my eyes to how much more needed to be done while also giving me the skills and resources to reach higher.
I left teaching to start my own consulting company through which I wrote curriculum and managed GED and summer programs. With a close friend, I started a real-estate company and lost my entire 401K renovating a corner lot in Saint Louis! And I wouldn’t have had any of it any other way. How could I be doing anything other than what I am doing now?
Any advice for those looking to start a company?
Talk about it and be about it. I spend a lot of time meeting people and speaking with them about Skill-Life. Many of the conversations don’t lead to much at all. But, often enough, a simple dialogue leads to someone or someplace else that’s exactly where we need to be. I’ve met one of Skill-Life’s most significant investors, Ron Morris, this way. Also, I always learn more about what we’re doing and need to do by trying to articulate a vision and pin down details to others. The way people hear what you have to say and what they say in return can be golden. For me, the key from there has been to go back into the cave and process it all. We’re constantly revising our pitch, product, and strategy as a result of repeated interactions with customers, investors, strategic partners, and everybody in between.
Best thing about running a company in Pittsburgh and the worst thing.
I’m originally from Washington, DC, where, even as a kid, I had a strong sense that there were people and places close by that would not likely be available to me. In Pittsburgh, I’ve been encouraged by how much access a young entrepreneur like me can gain. Everyone seems one-person removed and, more importantly, willing to give of their time and resources. This willingness has been essential to Skill-Life’s growth thus far.
In some ways, I’m concerned that this small world effect will have its limits. It seems possible that we will in time have exhausted the opportunities to be gained locally. At this point, however, we’ve only just begun digging deeper and Pittsburgh continues to show us its bridges.
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June 27th, 2009 | Tags: Beta, CentsCity, Customers, Pilt Partners, WYEP
Skill-Life has entered into an agreement and pilot partnership with WYEP 91.3 FM Pittsburgh. This partnership is part of WYEP’s “Engaging Communities on the Economy” project for promoting financial literacy among Pittsburgh youth ages 8-18.
WYEP has agreed to purchase a total of 600 “access passports” for Skill-Life, Inc.’s “CentsCity” financial literacy online program. These access passports will allow up 600 students to be among the first paying users of CentsCity once it becomes available for public use.
Skill-Life, Inc. will be working with WYEP to determine the best way to distribute the WYEP-sponsored access passports. WYEP will promote CentsCity as a financial literacy resource for students on wyep.org under the “WYEP FreeZone for Students” section, as well as in e-newsletters, print pieces and other non-broadcast materials throughout the duration of the partnership term. WYEP will also promote CentsCity to its youth services partners through the WYEP FreeZone program throughout the duration of the partnership term.
The term of this partnership will span June 8th through August 31st, 2009, with the possibility of extension beyond August 31st pending review and approval from both parties.
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June 3rd, 2009 | Tags: G4C, Games for Change
I attended the Games For Change conference in New York last week, and was impressed by the enthusiasm by the attendees and presenters alike. It is inspiring to be surrounded by people who not only believe in using games as a positive agent of social change, but who are actively utilizing them as such. One group is designing a public school to work like a game. How do you utilize game mechanics to mold the students’ experience? What type of activities do they take part in? What information is available to them as a “game” that would not be available in a traditional school setting? Many fascinating explorations into the world of using games to not only educate, but change and alter behavior.
One study performed by Joseph Kahne at www.civicsurvey.org found that games receive equal attention across socioeconomic divides. The inequalities of education and affluence do not exist in game spaces. When left to their own, young people are equally interested in the opportunities in games. When choosing their own activities, kids gravitate equally toward games across the board. Parents whose kids show signs of isolation or are not involved in the community, cannot necessarily point to the child’s involvement in games, but must look at their involvement with their child. The best predictor of a child’s involvement with a community is found in the parents’ involvement in their community.
James Gee shared an example about assessing a learner’s success at understanding subject material in games. In Halo, if a player completes the game on Difficult, you would not give the player a test to see if they know Halo. The fact they reached that level of achievement is proof they have reached the that level of understanding. Likewise, if you ask a group of kids to go build and set off a nuclear device, the resulting obituary would not say, “Oh, it’s a shame. We will never know if they learned Physics.” The activity in which they were engaged required them to learn physics to complete the task.
Similarly, by completing the CentsCity game, a player must demonstrate they understand how to manage not only day to day finances, but long term investment goals as well. The assessment is built into the experience. In order to complete the game, they must know and utilize the financial concepts taught.
Games essentially provide people the opportunity to learn a multitude of skills without the learning being the focus of the experience. They set goals or are given goals which in order to achieve, require them to learn a set of skills and acquire a certain level of knowledge to accomplish. However, the goal is fun, and the learning happens in a deep, meaningful way.
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