A social company Kõnekindlus (which will soon be re-branded to Lengu) is a brand of educational games that help children develop their speech. It was born as an initiative of three mothers.
The content of the games has been created in cooperation with specialists practicing in their field, and is an aid for specialists at work and for parents at home. The main characteristic of our products is playfulness.
Kõnevurr
The beginning
The first product - a spinner game Kõnevurr with interchangeable game disks was born from the personal need of a team member Maarit at the time when her preschooler was struggling with the R sound. Since the child was not willing to follow the exercises from the speech therapist at home, the mother had to find a playful way to motivate the child. The first prototype of the game was made of a candy box with a metal spinning disc. It became a hit game at home, and as a result of daily playing, the problem was solved within a month.
Kõnevurr
Development
There is a shortage of speech therapists and the queues for the appointment are long. Children's speech problems are a growing concern. In any therapy, homework with a child is crucial. The spinner game has received a very warm reception from both specialists and parents as an aid of supporting the therapy. Our spinner game is in nearly 300 Estonian kindergartens and at several hundred homes.
Users' feedback
While developing game discs we realized quite quickly that the lack of speech therapists and children's speech problems are not the only things that worry parents. In addition, children's self-expression as well as analysis and storytelling skills are mediocre. Therefore, we have involved a number of other specialists in product development: psychologists, occupational therapists, special educators, myofunctional therapists, team training specialists, etc. We want to bring science-based knowledge and tips to adults working with children in a playful form. In addition to spinner game, you can find other exciting products in our product range.
Kids with Kõnevurr game discs
Achievements and recognition
- 2021: an incubant of the Tallinn Creative Incubator
- 2021: Deed of the Year laureate in Karja Parish
- 2021: Jõgeva county inclusive budget winner - Acquisition of speech development kits for Jõgeva parish kindergartens
- 2022: StartUp Day Creative pitch winner
- 2022: Kaili Adamson was a nominee among the TOP 10 Young Entrepreneurs
- 2022: Kõnevurr - a nominee of the Bruno industrial design category of the Estonian Design Awards
- 2022: Kõnekindlus as a nominee of the Bright Start recognition at the Tallinn’s Entrepreneurship Day
- 2022: Kõnevurr - International Quality Innovation Award
- 2022: Tallinn Entrepreneurship Day pitch winner
- 2022: TOP 3 team of the SEB Entrepreneur of the Future Award pitching competition (as part of the Ajujaht (Brain Hunt) season 15)
- 2022: TOP 9 team of the Ajujaht (Brain Hunt) season 15
- 2022: winner of the Tallinn Creative Incubator export grant
- 2022: Challenger Diversity TOP 8 team
- 2022: Quality Innovation Award of the Estonian Quality Association
- 2022: Kõnevurr - Winner of the Healthcare Innovation 2022 category
Team
Goals
So far, we have started and kept the company running based on the team members' personal capital. Every free moment without our small children we spend on the company. We are doing the project with a great sense of mission, because we know we act for the better future and we have received very warm feedback on our work so far.
We have now planned to implement extensive and resource-demanding development and innovation works within a short period of time. We are updating speech therapy game discs and we are also developing an updated version of the spinner game Kõnevurr, to make it more accessible to everyone, in addition to the existing Premium spinner game. We hope to achieve our goals with your help!
Self-confident, decent and fluently speaking children are the makers of our future - invest in their education!
Maker of the future
Our HOOANDJA project is active from July until September, and we want to collect €15,000 in two stages.
1st goal 4,600€: we will complete the development of the new website. The new website is more user-friendly and has a new domain name. Free downloadable worksheets, educational blog posts from specialists and e-training as a new product article will be added.
2nd goal 15,000€: in cooperation with several active speech therapists in Estonia, we will update the methodology of speech therapy game discs of spinner games. The difficulty level will be added - an outer circle with easier exercises and an inner circle for advanced players. We’ll improve the texts and design of the game manuals (including adding warnings, goals, contraindications), we’ll revise the exercises so that they are even more targeted. We are creating new video tutorials where an adult and a child demonstrate the exercises and where you can see how the adult should help and guide the child in doing the exercises.
Kõnekindlus participates in the mentoring program of the Tallinn Creative Incubator and participated in the Estonian accelerator program Ajujaht (Brain Hunt) and Challenger Diversity.
