València Innovation Capital and Kokoro Kids invite the city’s preschool and elementary schools to participate in an initiative that combines technology, educational innovation, and emotional health to design new tools to support children
“Innovation must serve people—and especially children—to help them develop the emotional skills that are key to their well-being and future development,” emphasized Paula Llobet, Councilmember for Innovation.
The City of Valencia, through Valencia Innovation Capital (VIC), has launched—in partnership with the online learning platform Kokoro Kids—a pilot project in technological innovation to explore how educational video games can contribute to children’s emotional well-being in the school setting. The initiative enables the design, development, and evaluation of new digital experiences focused on emotional regulation, social skills, resilience, and emotional support for children.
The project aims to gather evidence on the potential of these tools as a complementary resource for schools, from a preventive, inclusive, and scientifically grounded perspective. To this end, schools in the city will participate, and their teaching staff will be able to contribute their experience and collaborate in defining and validating the pilot program’s content.
A year as a pilot
The project will be carried out over an estimated period of twelve months and will include phases of methodological design, technological development, implementation in schools, and evaluation of results. In addition, it calls for the participation of families and other stakeholders involved in children’s issues and emotional health to enrich the validation process.
Paula Llobet, the councilmember for Innovation, noted that innovation “must serve people—and especially those who can benefit most from it. With this project,” she added, “we want to explore new tools that help children develop emotional skills that are essential to their present and future well-being.”
Llobet emphasized that València Innovation Capital “continues to support initiatives that combine technology, research, and education to address real social challenges. “Collaboration with innovative companies in the local ecosystem allows us to test solutions that can have a positive impact on the educational community,” he said. The partnership between VIC and Kokoro Kids specifically focuses on institutional support, engagement with the educational ecosystem, and the dissemination of the results obtained.
Design and Methodologies
Participating schools will be able to collaborate on the design of the pilot program, contribute to the development of knowledge about new game-based educational methodologies, and receive priority access to the project’s results. In addition, the initiative is designed to be scalable so that its benefits can be extended to a greater number of schools in the future.
The Valencia City Council and Valencia Innovation Capital have launched a call for applications aimed at educational institutions interested in participating in this first phase of co-creation and validation, thereby reinforcing the city’s commitment to innovation aimed at improving the quality of life and well-being of citizens from an early age.
Kokoro Kids is an educational platform based on adaptive video games designed to promote children’s learning and development in an inclusive and personalized way. The project is backed by research conducted in collaboration with the Universitat Jaume I and the Universitat Politècnica de València and has received support from The LEGO Foundation through the international Play for All program.