Mightifier relies on user experience and top-notch design
App to prevent school bullying will represent Finland at the international Creative Business Cup finals in Denmark.
It all started as a special birthday present. Mervi Pänkäinen wanted to surprise her friend who was going to turn 40 by gathering feedback on what makes them a special and amazing person. Inspired by this idea and as a result of a long process of product development, the Mightifier tablet application was born.
According to the OECD, bullying is globally the number one threat to wellbeing among schoolchildren. Enhancing wellbeing can concurrently lead to better learning results in the long term. It is this challenge that Mightifier has taken on.
The application teaches children to give their fellow students positive feedback. The teacher monitors the interaction, which makes Mightifier a safe and bullying-free virtual environment. In user test situations some of the participants have even been moved to tears as the children complement one another. Pänkäläinen, the founder and CEO of the company, has seen that using Mightifier can significantly reduce bullying among children.
The application has reaped several awards and it has now set out to conquer the world. As its latest achievement it won the Creative Business Cup Finland pitching competition for creative startups and the title of the best creative business idea in Finland in 2017. In November Mightifier will represent Finland at the Creative Business Cup global finals in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“We’re stoked about going to Copenhagen! The most interesting part of it are the investor contacts – something a start-up is always on the lookout for”, Pänkäläinen remarks.
But the company will not wait around for November twiddling its thumbs. An agreement will be publicized in August through which a global supplier of learning material for children will start to sell the application in Asia. In September Mightifier will participate in the Slush Singapore event as part of the delegation of the City of Helsinki.
Plans are also in the works to create a version of Mightifier for adults. Pänkäläinen reveals that versions of the application have been proposed to be used in the contexts of military service, prisons and relationships. The upcoming business version aims to improve the quality and productivity of working life.
“If a person is scared in the workplace their brain is constantly in a primal state of ‘fight or run’! How can anyone make any sensible decisions or innovate in that frame of mind?”
The application for adults will be designed with the same approach as the original Mightifier: together with users. When Mightifier was being developed, children got to influence even the characters adventuring in the application.
“Initially we had only a teddy bear, but the kids thought it was lonely. The adults felt that another teddy bear would make a good friend for the bear, but the children voted for a bird. We sketched four different teddy bears and birds, and their best qualities in the children’s opinion were combined in the final characters”, Pänkäläinen describes the process.
The characters were drawn by Anima Boutique, whose portfolio also includes the animation for the Gigglebug brand.
“Now that an international operator has shown interest in us, it is all the more important for us to focus on top-notch design”, Pänkäläinen points out.
Finland’s national CBC competition, held in Helsinki on 9 August 2017, culminated in the finals, in which two creative business ideas besides Mightifier took part: Zenestar Wellness Studio and KELOSOUND®. The international Creative Business Cup finals will be held in Copenhagen during 15-16 November 2017. More than 100 startups from all over the world will compete in the finals.
