Valeria Leonardi wasn’t planning on being a co-founder of a toy start-up but these things just happen when technology is involved.

“I actually tried to become a teacher but I was rejected because I didn’t have GCSEs, despite having an MA and an MBA from two British universities, ” explains Leonardi, who grew up in Rome, Italy.

But what turned out to be the teaching world’s loss became the tech industry’s gain.

Leonardi is one-third of the founding team of Primo Toys, a toy start-up which creates Cubetto, a coding toy aimed at children aged three to six.

It’s unlike any coding device you’ve ever seen: a wooden robot, with no screens, and a control board onto which children place different blocks which will program the robot.

For instance, the green block will move the robot forward, whilst a red block will make it go right.

Children can build up the sequences and make the robot perform, introducing them into the world of coding without them even realising it.

We spoke to Leonardi about how she became involved in Primo Toys and why everyone should learn how to code, particularly young girls.

Primo Toys: Kickstarter campaigns and first stage products

View photos Valeria Leonardi, COO at Primo Toys (Primo Toys ) More

Leonardi found out about Primo Toys after her daughter, who was five at the time, featured in one of the company’s videos playing an early version of Cubetto. After learning more about Primo and Cubetto, Leonardi wanted to be involved.

“I thought, ‘oh my god, this is amazing,” she says. “It was a chance for me to put two things together, education and business, that I felt really strongly about.”

After meeting Primo Toys’ founders, Filippo Yacob, now CEO, and Matteo Loglio, also Italian, Leonardi came onboard as the third founder of the start-up, in February 2014.

Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength. Its first version of Cubetto was backed by 651 backers on the crowdfunding website, Kickstarter.

The next version of the coding toy was backed by 6,553 backers, who offered a total of $1.5 million to get the toy off the ground, making Cubetto the first crowd-funded educational invention ever on Kickstarter.

“With a product like Cubetto, going on Kickstarter meant getting validation from the end user that you don’t get from an investor,” explains Leonardi.

“And people loved what we were doing. We developed the second product with their feedback, to an extent, because we’d learnt so much from speaking to our first Kickstarter backers.”

Why is coding good for children?

Tech pioneers wax lyrical about the need for good coders, with the likes of Kathyrn Parsons from Decoded and supermodel Karlie Kloss offering their own forms of inspiration for future coders.

But, why should children start from the age of three? Do they need to start quite so early? For Leonardi, it’s about teaching children the crucial skills at a young age.

“Maths and writing have underpinned our civilisation for a long time but new literacies, like computer programming, are becoming just as important. Introducing them at the same age we introduce the other literacies is key.”

That's why Cubetto isn't only for parents who want their child to become a computer programmer or launch their own tech start-up, but for every child.

“Not every person who learns how to read wants to become an author,” says Leonardi. “But we all need those skills to function in this world and then we can choose which direction we want to go in.”

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