The founder of Boddle Learning, an interactive 3-D game designed to help students in kindergarten through sixth grade improve their English and math skills, moved to the United States in 2009 to pursue higher education.
Edna Martinson graduated from Park University with a bachelor’s degree in international business. Martinson continued her studies while working part-time at a commercial real estate firm, and she earned her MBA from the University of Missouri in 2016.
During her MBA journey, Martinson met Clarence Tan, who was a game designer at the time. They not only became life partners but also shared a common passion for children and education.
Martinson said that they noticed teachers were facing difficulties in classrooms with students of different learning levels. “I’ve seen personally, what a good education can do to help propel you in life,” Martinson told ABC News. “And I want to help kids also be inspired to learn and get that good quality education.”
Martinson and Tan began working on their game idea to optimize children’s learning in 2018, despite having minimal funds. They competed in pitch competitions and concentrated on developing a prototype to demonstrate to instructors and students in schools.
They got $50,000 from LaunchKC and $100,000 from AT&T’s accelerator program in 2019 to assist with the creation and programming of their platform. After developing a minimal viable product, they officially launched Boddle Learning the next year.
Martinson noted that when developing an educational game for children, they wanted to focus on characters with whom children could form strong bonds and who held unique importance. She said in an interview with Nasdaq “Well, we named the company Boddle after the bottle-headed characters we have in-game. As students learn, their character’s head fills up, sending that message to fill up on knowledge.”
She added, “The transparent nature of the Boddles highlight the importance of a child’s character on the inside, and once their heads are all full, Boddles pour back out to grow fun stuff in their virtual environment. This lets kids know that with an education, they have the ability and power to change the future.”
Boddle Learning began with 2,000 users. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, there was a considerable surge in demand as educators sought tools to assist them in making the shift to remote teaching. As the user base rose to 50,000 by 2020, Martinson was compelled to leave her full-time employment.
Martinson won $100,000 from Google for Startups in 2021, according to Startland News. In addition, the Ugandan-born Ghanaian was chosen to the Forbes 2023 Education 30 Under 30 list in appreciation of her work to encourage educational diversity, according to KTUL.
In the future, the organization intends to reach out to parents and provide them with opportunities for appropriate screen usage outside of the classroom.