SBIR Phase II: Developing a Novel Platform for Teaching Emotional Literacy

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to deliver an engaging, scalable, and effective social emotional learning platform by integrating soft skills training with major streaming media sites. By leveraging the reach and appeal of popular streaming media platforms with the latest emotion and learning science, the project may lead to improved academic performance, health, and quality of life for America’s youth. The product seeks to benefit mental health professionals and K-12 schools, with potential future areas of growth in corporate training and social emotional skills certificationThis Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to improve social and emotional skills like emotional literacy, empathy, and resilience among children, adolescents, and young adults at scale. The project aims to deliver a solution that addresses some of the shortcomings of existing social emotional learning (SEL) offerings, namely content quality and diversity. The technology will do so through the development of a platform that integrates SEL directly with major media streaming platforms using a browser extension technology. This technology will make it possible to leverage the wide range of popular content available on those platforms to build critical skills like empathy and emotion regulation. The platform will be powered by a training engine based on established emotion science principles to enable flexibility and personalization. The platform will support user collaboration as well as detailed performance analytics and will be designed to facilitate eventual integration with streaming applications on mobile devices and smart televisions. Efficacy studies will be conducted to evaluate the platform’s impact on social emotional skills.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.