Yahoo Finance Startup bets wearable will solve a huge problem for girls
Wearable technologies like FitBit (FIT) have been taking the consumer market by storm. Now two entrepreneurs are hoping their wearable product will get young girls to learn coding – and they’ve gotten backing from some serious players in tech manufacturing.
Though the share of women studying medicine and law is approaching 50%, women are losing ground when it comes to the rapidly-growing computer science field. In the mid-1980s, one out of every three computer science students was a woman. Today, it’s just one out of every five, according to data from the National Science Foundation.
A startup called Jewelbots is trying to change that ratio by getting girls interested in coding using a new twist on a popular children’s accessory – they are making programmable friendship bracelet.
Founders Sara Chipps and Brooke Moreland came up with the idea after talking to about 150 girls between the ages of 9 and 14 and asking them what would be an appealing way to get them to learn to write code.
“We wanted it to be a wearable,” explained Moreland. “They came up with the design and functionality.”
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The bracelets have flower-shaped plastic jewels with LED lights that can vibrate or change color when a user’s friend is nearby. As it can be linked to the user’s computer and smartphone, Chipps and Moreland see girls learning to code by programming hacks such having the bracelets notify them when a friend posts a photo on Instagram.
Jewelbot has raised nearly $100,000 from nearly 1,000 people through a Kickstarter campaign launched earlier this month. But their largest financial backers are some big names in manufacturing who are betting that the bracelets will be profitable as well as educational.
The company has taken in $400,000 in angel investments from the likes of Detroit’s IncWell Ventures, founded by former Chrysler (FCAU, FCAM) CEO Tom LaSorda and other Chrysler executives. It also has up to $700,000 in manufacturing credits from Irish-based PCH International, the company that made Apple’s (AAPL) Beats by Dre headphones.
Jewelbots plans on manufacturing its first run of 20,000 units this winter and selling them for about $65 each by the spring of next year. They are encouraged by reactions from an initial test with about 100 girls.
“They freak out,” said Chipps.
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