Re-imagining Toys as Tools for Change
What We Do
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Our Story
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Where We Play
Twenty One Toys is a toy creation company re-imagining toys as tools
for social change, organizational change, educational change and more.
What We Do
A New Category of Toys
We are creating a new category of toys that teach the key 21st-century skills: Creativity, Collaborative Learning, Innovation, and Problem Solving. We also develop and deliver workshops to immerse groups in the lessons of our toys.
Why toys, you ask?
Toys are objects like no other. Play is a state like no other.
They have a unique way of allowing for fun, safe exploration of new and complex ideas. They make it possible for us, somehow, to be comfortable in spaces of uncertainty. In a world that’s increasingly interconnected, new dialogue between diverse groups of people is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception. We need to equip ourselves with the tools to take these conversations further – and to make that feel like play, not work.
Our first in a new set of toys for the 21st century is the award-winning CONNEXIONS™ TOY for Empathy and Creative Dialogue.
A 3-dimensional abstract puzzle with tactile and semantic clues, CONNEXIONS™ was originally designed with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to bridge the communication gap between visually impaired elementary school students and their sighted classmates. It is now used as a tool for empathic learning and creative education for people of varying ages and abilities, in classrooms and boardrooms around the world. CONNEXIONS™ breaks down communication barriers and gives insight into how we work collaboratively.
Stay tuned for our upcoming toys including the FAILURE TOY, coming this fall.
Our Story
Learning Revolution
Twenty One Toys is the product of a revolution. You could say this revolution has been happening since the 1800s, or you could say it’s early days still. You’d be right on both counts.
Our revolution, the one we go to work for every day, is a learning revolution.
Our revolution demands answers: Where are creativity, play, teamwork and empathy in our classrooms, our boardrooms or the public square? More importantly, how do we teach these critical skills?
We thought the revolution started with our hero Ken Robinson, and the growing movement within education, business and the not-for-profit sector to educate people on what Mariale Hardiman calls the key 21st-century skills: Creativity, Collaborative Learning, Innovation and Problem Solving.
… But then we scratched the surface and realized our revolution has deep roots. We began discovering new heroes. Chief among them is Friedrich Froebel, the 19th-century inventor of Kindergarten. Friedrich developed 20 toys – or “gifts”, as he called them. Often considered the world’s first educational toys, they were the early whispers of the revolution towards play in learning – and they influence us daily. His approach hinted at a question that is the cornerstone of our work: Why not use toys as tools for social change?
We like to think that we channel Friedrich, and
our work starts by designing his 21st toy . . . for the 21st century, of course.
We carry forward his legacy, his spirit, and his revolution two centuries later.
Where We Play
Oh, The Places We Go
- We are designers, teachers, researchers, activists, and business types. You need a mixed bag to develop groundbreaking toy and game concepts.
- We have worked out of studios and offices in Montreal, Helsinki, London, and Toronto. We exist perpetually in a virtual Play Learn Think Tank.
- We have presented at TEDx, StartupFest International, BitNorth, and Startup Sauna/Aalto Venture Garage’s Demo Day
But you should see how far our toys go…
We have run workshops with this toy at schools in Uganda, Trinidad, and Toronto – as well as with organizations such as Engineers Without Borders, Federated Press, and Shad Valley International.