Jill Vanparys

"Despite the fact that in high school her highest marks were in science and math, the lack of motivation to dedicate herself to a profession in one of these areas led the then 18 year-old Belgian Jill Vanparys to choose a design major at university. Her´s is just another example of the current trend in Western cultures dominated by a deficit of scientific vocation. In the United States, for example, only 16% of all high school students are interested in pursuing this line of university studies.

Although Vanparys chose to study design, she did not turn her back on science. And in order to address situations like hers, she created Curious Cats, the company behind Ava & Trix: a tool in the form of a videogame to stimulate children´s interest in science and technology, an idea that has led Vanparys to be recognized as one of MIT Technology Review´s Innovators Under 35 Belgium 2016.

""Up to age six, preschools and kindergardens encourage creativity and experimentation, but in primary schools the change in educational methods favors the execution of other things,"" Vanparys says. In Belgium, at age 12 students have to decide which direction their secondary educational paths will take. ""We need to generate an impact before that moment to foster interest in studying science and technology,"" she points out.

But despite ""efforts to introduce new technologies into the classroom, most of the time this translates into using tablets like 'books under a glass',"" the young designer complains. For this reason, Ava & Trix uses a different approach. Through a game guided by a storyline, children are tasked with resolving a problem through the elements that have been presented to the audience. With the help of their teacher, the students reproduce their proposed solutions in the classroom, which serve as an early introduction to the scientific method of elaborating hypothesis and experiments to confirm the correct result.

The lack of scientific vocations also affects the companies that need specialized staff, and Curious Cat´s proposes that these same companies donate the cost of launching the program. For now, Ava & Trix will be used as of this coming fall in the classrooms of 11 year-olds at several schools and will initially include three stories, though there are already plans in place to expand the series to cover more subjects within the flemish curriculum and include more age groups.

In the opinion of the radio editor and producer for L´Atelier BNP and jury member for Innovators Under 35 Belgium 2016, Lila Meghraoua, ""we must do something to make science education fun, and Vanparys has accomplished that."""