Remember the company that donated the value of a Super Bowl ad in free snacks to anyone who wanted, instead of paying the extortionately overpriced airtime?
A Mexican immigrant with a father who survived the Holocaust, CEO Daniel Lubetzky set up Kind Snacks, their core mission not just to provide nutritionally rich snacks to make people feel good, but to create a movement to pay that feeling forward. Having always considered diversity, inclusion, and empathy to be vitally important character traits, he started Empatico at the end of 2017 backed by a $20 million investment from KIND’s nonprofit arm, The KIND Foundation.
By using online to build actual connection, the free video learning platform aims to teach kids empathy and unite students across the globe, enabling them to understand, collaborate and learn from each other via video chats when working on particular projects.
The program now reaches kids from ages 7 to 11. Over 650 teachers in 47 states and 50+ countries (from Azerbaijan to New Zealand) currently use the service, and nonprofit agencies–like Ashoka, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, and Teach For All– that already work to improve learning conditions and educational access in many school districts have offered it to their members.
In a world in which people can seem more divided than ever, it’s this kind of breaking down barriers and building bridges that we need more than ever.