Making Language Learning Fun And Accessible

Mikaela Gilbert is 19-years-old and goes to Indiana University, in the United States. She started designing Chatter Eggs when she was 17, in her senior year at high school. 

When I was in my sophomore year at high school, I was given a wooden egg in one of my classes and told to make a product, and package it. I thought of an egg-shaped toy that wobbled without falling down and made animal noises. I called it Chatter Eggs and it was painted to look like a farm animal.

My teacher loved the idea and said he could see it on a crowdfunding platform like Kickstarter, but I thought it was similar to toys that were already available.

At the time, I was also taking a class that focused on innovation. I took the toy in and after we brainstormed a bit, I added a foreign language element to it. Each Chatter Eggs animal now correlates to the area where the language originated from, so the Chinese version is a panda. When it wobbles it says a phrase in a foreign language and then repeats it in English.

I don’t have a background in technologically, so I’ve had a lot of mentors helping me through the development process. I also didn’t know a thing about entrepreneurship. I actually Googled, ‘What to do with toy idea’ and ended up cold-calling a toy development company. I got lucky when they picked up the phone and said they wanted to work with me. They helped me create a prototype that operates in a similar way to how I envisaged Chatters Eggs would eventually work.