MUMBAI: Cosmos-Maya kids’ animation brand Wow Kidz has partnered with educational publisher Twinkl to create a range of educational materials and resources based on Vir: The Robot Boy.
The new jointly-created teaching resources aim to inspire children and engage them in learning by featuring one of India’s favourite cartoon robots, Vir The Robot Boy. The animated superhero character, owned by Cosmos-Maya, is also much-loved around the world, with the series of the same name now streaming on over 50 digital video platforms worldwide.
Twinkl is one of the world’s largest educational providers, offering over 710,000 resources to over 10 million teachers, parents and carers around the world. The UK-based company provides a wide range of materials from assessments and activity sheets to educational games and crafts, with resources available to use in the classroom and at home.
Wow Kidz is a market leader in the Indian animation sector and is part of the India and Singapore based cartoon studio, Cosmos-Maya. Its YouTube multi-channel network has content from over 17 of its own titles in addition to nearly 15 acquired titles in 18 languages over 34 channels. The brand has over 60 million subscribers on YouTube with Vir The Robot Boy as its best performing IP, with 13 billion views of its own and contributing nearly 40 per cent of the multi-channel network’s gross viewership.
Children can indulge in their love of Vir: The Robot Boy whilst developing skills in a wide range of topics that are suitable for children aged three to eleven years old. Covering subjects including literacy and art, the resources on Twinkl include activities such as sentence formations, creative writing prompts and colouring sheets. The educational materials are free to use and accessible to everyone through the Twinkl website.
Wow Kidz’s parent company Cosmos-Maya CEO Anish Mehta said: “With schools closing down at the start of the lockdowns around the world in April 2020, the EdTech sector saw an unprecedented boost with online coaching modules that provided immense business opportunities for animation studios beyond the standard entertainment space. Entering this collaboration with Twinkl, we get to marry two booming segments of our company – merchandising and EdTech – while entering a mutually beneficial partnership from multiple standpoints: customer retention, brand and revenue potential.”
Cosmos-Maya has been making strides in all possible avenues of the animation spectrum, and EdTech is the company’s youngest and fastest-growing division and is expected to account for 20 per cent+ of production revenues for FY 2022E.
Cosmos-Maya edtech & gaming SVP of L&M Priti Karandikar added: “The key advantage of mixing entertainment in education is that it leads to creating genuine interest in the students towards acquiring knowledge. Well-known animated characters are extremely popular and can act as ‘Study Buddies’ – entertaining and cheerful contact points for learning without taking away the primary learning objective. These ‘Study Buddies’ make topics easy to memorize, by making them into stories with multiple perspectives.”
Twinkl International Head Neil Cleverly said: “At Twinkl, we’re always asking ourselves how we can pique the interest of children and use this to engage them in learning. Through our partnership with Wow Kidz and Cosmos-Maya, we have been able to do exactly that.
“The vibrant and imaginative animations that they are renowned for have enabled us to bring learning to life, all while providing valuable teaching tools for teachers, parents and carers. We know that these Vir: The Robot Boy resources are going to be a big hit with children right across India, as well as around the world.”
Services and resources from Twinkl with the Wow Kidz brand will go live in India in the last week of March 2021.
