Meet the 13-year-old who has designed an interactive board game for children and their parents

With the pandemic confining most school-going children to their homes, boredom crept in. Parents remained busy with their work-from-home routines, and children tended to spend their time after online school on either gadgets or television.

Even after schools reopen, constructive use of children's time is essential for their well-being.

Alvira Tripathi, a 13-year-old student from The Shriram School, Moulsari, Haryana, has developed a novel way in which children and parents can spend time with each other, playing and learning things together.

“There's so much knowledge and information out there, and we should all enjoy learning. While newspapers or watching the news may provide ‘news’, not everyone enjoys it the old-fashioned way,” she says.

As part of her Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) class, Alvira brainstormed on the idea for an interactive board game. She developed Know On The Go, which challenges the player on general awareness on diverse topics while facilitating learning.

"While it has been developed for children between the ages of 7 and 14, it's relevant for all age groups and helps parents constructively engage with their children," she says.

The game revolves around general knowledge and constitutes a spinning wheel and cards on 15 topics.

Alvira explains: "The topics range from politics and history to technology and the environment. They have QR codes at the back and need to be placed on the board. The player spins the wheel to get the difficulty level - hard, medium, and easy – and then scans the QR code provided and gets to answer the multiple-choice question.

"There is something new to learn for everyone. Moreover, the evolution of the game would translate to knowledge for different age groups and have a much wider reach.”

 The uniqueness of the game, according to her, is that it is both "offline" and "online"! It introduces a constructive use of technology and the remarkable touch and feel of a board game – win-win for parents who want their children to learn how they did.

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Game on

Globally, the market size of the gaming industry is $ 13-14 billion – with one-third of the gaming population in Southeast Asia, of which 35 percent are in India.

However, the re-construction of household behaviour due to pandemic has genuinely pushed the gaming industry and intensified the board game audience.

Alvira is hoping to cash in on this trend.

“The board game is tentatively priced at Rs 750 and is expected to hit the shelves in the next couple of months. Given that the market potential is huge as its target audience reflects 10 percent of India's population, I am optimistic about selling around 60,000 pieces over the next two years,” she adds. 

She credits her YEA! classes for teaching her the basics of finance and marketing and her mentors, who helped her every step of the way. Her proudest moment was when she won third prize at YEA! Investor panel.

Alvira is also a mountaineer; she became the second youngest Asian Girl to have summited Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania when she was 11 years old. She rates this as one of her most significant accomplishments.

"My first step towards my entrepreneurial journey is no less than climbing a mountain. I just need to walk it through fearlessly and with a lot of faith," Alvira says.