Press & Awards
The Empathy Toy® on CBC's Our Toronto
"They are called 21st-century skills, or soft skills. Maybe you've heard the term, people skills – the ability to interact socially and harmoniously with others. Not always the skills companies focused on when hiring. But that's changing quickly and over at the Centre for Social Innovation, where a local toy company has created a game that's teaching an important soft skill: empathy."
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The Empathy Toy® at TEDxConcordia
It all started as a student project with a very specific assignment: design a navigational aid for the blind. Address the key questions of, "Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there?" ...and how a visually impaired person might get others to help them answer them.
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“In short, the Empathy Toys create a dialogue between students, coaxing them to work together to get through tasks, and to find a shared language to do so. The result, Crowchild said, is an 85% drop in office referrals due to conflict in the three years since the school has been using the toys.”
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“The Empathy Toy helped [top-performing sales executives at FedEx Canada] to understand how collaboration requires patience, opportunities for error, and time to recalibrate messages and then see things out to final execution.”
See MoreAwards & Acknowledgements
- Canadian Export Challenge – Global Entrepreneur Award for Toronto/Mississauga
- Archangel – Moonshot Prize Winner
- SheEO – Radical Generosity Recipient
- Multiplicity Power Up Sales Challenge – 1st Place Award
- SIIA – Innovation Faculty Choice Runner-Up
- Core77 Design Awards – Notable Award in Educational Initiatives
- OCAD Imagination Catalyst Pitch Competition – 1st Place & Take It To Market Incubator Residency
- Ashoka Changemakers & American Express Leadership Boot Camp – Emerging Innovators
- Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund for Social Ventures – Award Recipient
- Ontario Centres of Excellence - Student Social Enterprise Pitch Competition – Award Recipients
- Venture Start (FedDev Ontario) – Award Recipients
- Spin Master Innovation Fund – Award Recipients
- Youth Social Innovation Capital Fund – Award Recipients
- Centre for Social Innovation - Youth Agents of Change Program – Award Recipients
- C2MTL’s Emerging Entrepreneurs – Award Recipients
- A.C.I.D.O. Rocket Design Competition – Best in Show
How did a toy startup go from idea to reality?
There's more to this toy story than meets the eye… Explore our origin story to see all the steps, press, and awards that got Twenty One Toys and the Empathy Toy® to where we are today.
Explore Our Origin Story