For Bardh Kadiu, founding edtech startup KidsDay came out of necessity, and one that became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, one of the other co-founders of the startup, Brikena Krasniqi, was leading a daycare center, but due to pandemic restrictions parents couldn’t enter its premises. In turn, this caused additional challenges for all of the parties involved – children, parents, and educators.
“Consequently, all daily communication occurred either in front of the daycare center or via reports posted at the entrance, severely compromising the privacy of each child’s personal information. In response to this challenge, we started discussions on how to address this issue, ultimately leading to the inception of the idea to create an application designed to enhance parent-teacher communication and more,” Kadiu, who has more than a decade of experience as a founder with his previous startup CODA.TECH, tells The Recursive.
Together, Kadiu and Krasniqi blended their experience from the tech industry and nursery management, and with the help of their third co-founder Getoar Kastrati, who is the CTO and Teach Lead, created KidsDay – an app that helps kindergartens and nurseries to streamline their operations.
Nowadays, the administration of multiple kindergartens and daycare centers in Kosovo use KidsDay to monitor the performance of its educators and to have an accurate overview of the children’s activities and participation at any time, Kadiu explains.
Additionally, the app serves educators to facilitate classroom management and generate personalized reports for each child about daily activities, which are given to parents at the end of each day.
“The idea is to change how we do early childhood education and care. A big part of this is using data and AI to understand how kids are doing and help teachers make better choices. AI can also give kids more online learning stuff and help daycare centers run more smoothly. There are many possibilities!” he tells The Recursive.
Disrupting the traditional way of running kindergartens in the Balkans
This month, the Kosovo-based startup also got its first strategic investment from Finnish Schools International (FSI), which is a network of schools utilizing the Finnish education system, and Berlin-based Highlight Ventures.
The German VC will support KidsDay in its global go-to-market strategy and enhance its AI- powered and user-centered digital platform while FSI will contribute with its expertise in developing further the learning and development features of the platform.
The goal, as they point out together, is to “position KidsDay as the AI-powered go-to platform for learning, communication, and management in the early years sector”.
According to Alejtin Berisha from Finnish Schools International, KidsDay has the potential to disrupt the traditional way of how kindergartens are run across the Balkans.
“Daycare and preschool is a relatively new concept across the Balkans and still most daycare have been managed traditionally. I believe KidsDay will heavily disrupt this trend initially across the Balkans and later globally,” Berisha tells The Recursive.
By integrating advanced technology, KidsDay aims to revolutionize early childhood education by offering three essential elements: first, the digitization of daycare and nursery management, enhancing overall efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Secondly, the introduction of daily reporting to parents fosters improved communication, increases parental involvement, and reduces the workload on teachers.
However, the most pivotal aspect, emphasized by Berisha, is the major advancement in learning and development facilitated by AI. Through KidsDay, teachers can now create personalized learning pathways for each child, ensuring a tailored educational experience that meets the unique needs of every young learner.
The company itself plans to use the investment to further develop its app with AI features, and reach one million parent users within the next two years. “The investment and support received from Finnish School International and Highlight Ventures will be strategically directed towards the integration of artificial intelligence into our application, with the primary aim of advancing and enriching the realm of early childhood education,” Kadiu says.
So far, the region has seen the development of similar solutions such as Romanian platform Kinderpedia and Bulgarian edtech startup Shkolo.bg. Kadriu also expects the development of trends such as fun learning through technology and options where parents can also join in the process.
“We’ll see a bigger focus on including all kinds of kids and caring for their feelings. Being eco-friendly will be more common, and parents will be more connected through technology. Safety and cleanliness will still be very important. Teachers will use data to help kids learn better, and they’ll keep learning how to teach. Schools and daycare places will also become more interesting for kids to explore and learn in.” Kadiu concludes.
