Author: Taylor Jacobe

Taylor "Tay" Jacobe is a junior at Rice University studying Economics and Policy Studies. After graduating, she eventually plans to attend law school and pursue a career in human rights law.

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McNair Center Small Business Women

Startups of the Season

While the holiday season approaches, educational toys are in high demand. Some of the most innovative new toys are produced by startups. For many of these toys, they began with an entrepreneur who saw a need to integrate play and learning.

According to the most recent statistics, the United States toy market is worth $21.18 billion. In 2015, the industry surpassed growth expectations, which is especially impressive when compared to the overall retail industry, which grew 0.7 percent less than expected. The toy industry’s prosperity is drawing in entrepreneurs who are enticed by potential for high earnings. Although there are many start-up-developed toys on the market, here are some that have received waves of public support.

Robot Turtles

In 2013, father Dan Shapiro decided to teach his four-year-old twins how to program. Improvising, he created a game using printed pictures from his computer, which led to the creation of Robot Turtles, a board game designed to teach preschoolers how to program. After noticing how much his children enjoyed the game, Shapiro took time away from his job at Google to develop the game full-time.

Robot Turtles utilizes kid-friendly challenges and elements that teach the fundamentals of computer programming while kids play. Children do not even need to be able to read.

After the idea was ready, Shapiro took the idea to Kickstarter, an online community that funds creative ideas. The site connects creators to backers who can provide funds to get a project off the ground. With Robot Turtles, Shapiro set a funding goal of $25,000 so that he could produce his first set of games. Support was incredibly strong, meeting this goal 5 hours after being released. In the funding period of 24 days in September 2013, Robot Turtles managed to draw in 13,765 backers. The most-backed board game in Kickstarter history, Robot Turtles raised a whopping $631,260 in that short period.

By August 2014, Robot Turtles was in every Target store in America. Now, Robot Turtles continues to thrive. An interactive eBook, coloring sheets, and other add-ons were developed to supplement the game.

Roominate

When Alice Brooks and Bettina Chen began their master’s program in engineering at Stanford University, they were two of the few women within their program.

In response to this gender gap, Chen and Brooks partnered up to create Roominate, a building toy designed for girls. Roominate sets include many modular and mechanical pieces that allow girls to explore their interests in design and engineering through play.

Roominate began on Kickstarter in 2012, raising $85,964. The project page highlighted their goal with bold lettering, “We believe that early exposure to STEM through toys will inspire change.”

Later, the product was also featured on Shark Tank, an ABC show where inventors pitch their ideas to successful investors in order to get funding, in September 2014. In the episode, investors Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner decided to partner with the organization.

After a few years with successful growth, Chen and Brooks took back to KickStarter in 2015 to fund development of a new product line for Roominate, “rPower,” featuring new modular wire pieces. This addition makes building and using the circuits easier for children. The Kickstarter campaign was extremely successful, raising over $50,000.

Roominate has grown quickly and is now found in over 5,000 retail locations around the world.

PopUp Play

Argash, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austin_Evening.jpg
Home to PopUp Play, Austin is growing as a startup hub in the United States.

Home to PopUp Play, Austin is growing as a start-up hub in the United States.Not surprisingly, innovative Educational Toy start-ups can also be found in Texas. In Austin, married couple Bryan Thomas and Amelia Cosgrove have found a niche in harnessing children’s creativity.

PopUp play utilizes an iPad app to let children design the play fort of their dreams. The company then produces an assemblable fort out of corrugated fiberboard and delivers it in as little as a week. There are also plans to expand the iPad app so it can be used to supplement the play experience once the fort has been assembled. For example, the company is looking to develop a Submarine fort template along with a virtual periscope on the app to search the imaginary seas.

Like Robot Turtles and Roominate, PopUp Play found its start on Kickstarter. During a 32-day period beginning in May 2015, 135 backers provided $25,676 to help make PopUp Play a reality.

But that was just getting started. The team then began working with Capital Factory, a collaborative workspace and Accelerator Austin, Texas. They later also found allies in Techstars, an Austin Accelerator where they participated in a three-month mentorship program.

Since then, they have received waves of recognition, including being named one of the top 50 Best New Apps for Kids by Apple in 2015 and an American Airlines Innovator in June 2016. The company also won the top prize in its category in the South by Southwest Accelerator Competition in March 2016. This demonstrates that there is large potential for success. PopUp Play is also supported by high-profile investors, including Capital Factory, Silverton Partners, Floodgate, and Techstars.

Supporting Startups for the Holidays

Entrepreneurs tend to be passionate about their products and creative in how they make them a reality. Parents who are hoping to find fun, educational toys for their children can look to startups to find some of the most creative, innovative products on the market.

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McNair Center Women

Women in STEM: Closing the Gap

Economists around the world emphasize the benefits of integrating more women into the workforce. While we are seeing slow growth in women’s presence in many sectors, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields at the core of innovation seem to be especially lacking in girl power.

In 2014, women comprised approximately 47 percent of the U.S. workforce. Within the innovation-focused STEM fields, women only account for about 19.5 percent. This underrepresentation of women is not only holding women back from success and achieving their full potential, but also preventing the U.S. economy from realizing the wide array of benefits which come from increasing women’s labor force participation.

Why We Need More Women in STEM

When women get involved in STEM fields, they are rewarded. Compared to similar women who are working in non-STEM fields, the salaries of women  in STEM are 33 percent higher. For men, the difference is only 25 percent. Not only are salaries higher, but the gender pay gap is also smaller. A 2011 U.S. Department of Commerce study found that the average gap is 21 percent in non-STEM jobs. For STEM jobs, this gap is only 14 percent.

Women aren’t the only ones who benefit. Companies that place an emphasis on gender equality and hiring women tend to see positive impacts on their productivity and success. For companies marketing to women, the Harvard Business Review has shown that having input from women improves their “likelihood of success” by 144 percent. Innovative firms, along with many traditional businesses, can benefit from having female perspectives to help reach female customers.

Gender diversity in the workplace also enhances creativity among workers. When researchers at the University of Maryland and Columbia University teamed up to study top leadership in Standard and Poor’s Composite 1500 list, they found that female representation in leadership positions is associated with a $42 million increase in average firm value. They also saw that companies which emphasized innovation received higher financial gains when women were in top management.

U.S. Initiatives to Empower STEM Women

The Obama Administration has made efforts to increase women’s involvement in STEM. In 2009, President Barack Obama created the White House Council on Women and Girls, a team that coordinates U.S. policy, legislation, and programs to address the needs of women and girls.  The Council has made women’s involvement in STEM a particular priority. They have announced multiple initiatives, like Title IX protections for equal education, work-life balance programs, and speaking tours for successful women innovators. The administration also made efforts to eliminate the gender pay gap through the creation of an Equal Pay Task Force in 2010 and an executive order affecting federal contractors in 2014.

Obama Signs the Executive Order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls

These actions alone cannot address the full extent of gender inequality. However, they may improve the situation. Policies that encourage girls to explore their interest in STEM give girls the opportunity to develop passions in these fields. Once these passions become careers, flexible and non-discriminatory policies in the workplace can incentivize women to stay involved in STEM throughout their careers.

Women in STEM around the World

In North America and Western Europe, on average, only 32 percent of researchers, defined as “professionals engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems and also in the management of the projects concerned,”  are women. Japan, one of the leading tech development nations, has a mere 15 percent. Surprisingly, Central Asia has the highest average proportion of women researchers, with 47 percent.

The United Kingdom ranks second in world scientific achie1512b16-women-in-science-interactive-map-researchers-un1-1vement, behind the United States. 35.7 percent of researchers in the UK are women. Within solely STEM fields, though, the proportion of women is even lower: only 14.4 percent. This trend is apparent across many of the nations with the highest investments and achievements in STEM.

Differences in gender norms affect incentives for women to enter these fields. In some regions, like India, women are expected to be caretakers and homemakers. Their participation in STEM, and the workforce in general, is therefore often very low. On the other end of the spectrum, there are certain areas in Asia where gender stereotypes regarding math and science are less prevalent. In these areas, STEM interest is greater among women than men.

Culture clearly has an effect on the proportion of women who get involved in STEM professions. A prevailing stereotype exists in American society that women are inferior to men in math and science. Although this stereotype has been proven untrue, societal beliefs and expectations can have an effect on women’s empowerment. Research by Claude M. Steele shows the effects of stereotypes on performance and self-perception. If we want to see a change in the proportion of women in STEM, we need to change our culture.

What is the Future for Women in STEM?

Remedying the gender gap in innovation fields is not a simple or quick process. It requires a combination of education for girls, policy changes that eliminate barriers for women workers, cultural changes, shifts in societal prioritization of gender equality, and much else besides. At the current progress rate, we are a long way from eliminating the gender gap. However, with concerted effort from policymakers, educators, and employers, there is hope for a fairer and more productive future.