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Sarah’s Story

Dear Reader,

Allow me to take you on a journey back to the origins of Digipalz and share why I felt compelled to create this game. This is me — Samantha — standing to the right of my younger sister, Sarah. We were around 9 and 7 years old, dressed in matching dresses in Australia. Our mother loved to dress us like twins.

Fast forward a few years, Sarah is now in the 6th grade.

Suddenly, a few boys at school begin to bully her about her body type. Eventually, the bullying progresses to tormenting Sarah online, using social media. In an image posted to Facebook, I saw Sarah having fun with her friends at the school dance. In the comment section the boys in her grade had humiliated her and mocked her appearance. I took it to the school principal, wanting to protect my sister, but because it was online the school policies couldn’t intervene to stop the bullying. While her days dealing with bullies are now behind her, Sarah’s story was one I never forgot. When I understood 1 in 3 children will experience the same thing she did, I knew I had to do something to address how children behave online - for their safety, heightened self-awareness and collective protection. I developed Digipalz so children globally could have fun learning about cyber safety, how to protect themselves online, how to react when they need help or are in danger, and how to ask for help.

Thank you for signing up for our waitlist! You make our startup possible.

Samantha Tenus
Founder and CEO

What inspired the idea?

Digipalz first began as a TV show (which we are also in development on). I wanted to create the first children’s show aimed at driving positive social change. It was not until I started developing the episodes that I realized there needs to be an interactive component if the lessons are to really stick and resonate with younger audiences. I grew up gaming on Nancy Drew and Sims and thought, how cool would it be if we could design a game that is developed for social change? A game that is both fun to play and has an impact on children for the better.

Could Digipalz be… a game?

I decided to pivot and create a 2D game instead. Then I began researching.

As I began researching, it became clear that children online are at high risk of a myriad of threats. Cyberbullying? 1 in 3. Identity theft? 1 in 4. Contact with a sexual predator? 1 in 3. The data shows children are incredibly unsafe online today and that there is no solution teaching children how to effectively defend themselves online. We aren’t just building a game — we are designing a solution that will ensure children who play our game will become the hardest targets to online threats.

I consulted with experts who advise the FBI, RCMP, and Homeland Security. To my amazement, they agreed.

“Digipalz will harden children as targets making it a lot more difficult for predators to get to them. It will result in less cases on [our] desk.”

Then I met our Chief Technical Officer

I was roaming around an investor party when I met our Chief Technical Officer, Atal Atal. (Spoiler: He never smiles for photos but we promise this moment was celebratory!) Instantly, Atal and I connected on the mission behind Digipalz. A few months later, him and I sat down to discuss the business, vision for the future and what it would take to build a successful software company. We decided to put our skills together to bring Digipalz to life, making Atal our Chief Technical Officer and leader of all things development.

Our culture is at the heart of everything we do. As a team, we strive to embody these traits and values and to grow together. This is our expectation of all team members. Take a peak into our culture below.

Leadership Accountability & Expectations

Work is not fun unless leadership shows up for the team. Our team is deeply respected for their talents and passion for their craft. We believe in briefing in and getting out of the way. As leaders, we strive to provide clarity in expectations to enable our team to continually deliver exceptional work and to ensure the experience of building Digipalz is a lot of fun. Our team is committed to making a difference in children’s lives globally. We use the fire in our passion to drive forward our actions and data to drive our decisions.

Team Culture

We are a bold team that is not afraid to take decisive action.

We are driven by our passion to keep children safe online.

We are committed to excellence in the work we do.

We are informed and strategize with data.

Investor Relations

  • We are an online platform accessed through subscriptions that customers pay for monthly or annually. As a company we are both B2C (parents) and B2B (school boards). Our team is entirely remote and aside from one team member, we are all on Eastern Time. We are classified as a startup and currently we are pre-revenue.

  • We offer two versions of Digipalz. One includes automatic grading for teachers (‘graded’) and the other has no grades and offers game play (‘just for fun’).

    Digipalz - Just for Fun (purchased by parents)

    Every month, we release one mission for children to play. It can feature a topic such as, for example, grooming tactics. Children gain access to our platform by subscriptions that their parents have paid for.

    Digipalz - Graded (purchased by school boards)

    We offer only annual subscriptions to school boards, which include a full year of Digipalz curriculum. This means schools gain access to missions 1-10 immediately upon purchasing a subscription. Teachers are expected to set their own pace for mission completion.

  • As we each work on various elements of the business, such as design or scripting, it is very important to remember that our target customers are parents and school boards.

  • Digipalz is currently under consideration for a couple of growth accelerators.

  • We are past ideation phase. We have roadmaps and plans for the next 6 months out - which is our MVP development timeline. We are currently seeking access to capital through strategic partnerships (investor/mentor relationships).

Pssssst!

Keep your eye out for an email update from us once we approach our launch date. We are aiming to launch in late 2025 and are currently in development of the game. We can’t wait to share with you what we have put our all into.