Family time is becoming more and more challenging in our society, although studies reveal its importance in creating an environment that builds self-esteem and character in children. Dragos, Bianca and Paul are the main characters in the story called Via Happiness, which aims to create a world where parents and their kids spend valuable time together, being involved in all sort of activities that are meant to encourage children develop their emotional intelligence. How are they planning to do that? By creating special books and games. Find out more about their impact plan.
How did it all start, what’s the story behind your startup?
We had a challenging childhood and so we paid attention to every problem and pain children had to face. Then, gradually, we started working at a project to help them, and we ended up concentrating on improving the emotional intelligence of children and parents, the most important ability of our century.
Name three key words that best describe your business
Love, Dedication, Passion
What is your motivation? What gets you from thinking to DOING?
We want to learn parents and children work with their emotions, and help them strengthen their bond.
How do you plan to IMPACT the world?
Imagine a world where people have a high emotional intelligence, aided by their emotions and the super-powers of cooperation, respect for self and for others, courage and responsibility: that’s where we’re going at Via Happiness. Our vision is to bring the super-powers of emotional intelligence to all the children and parents in this world, and it starts with us cooperating with you, the readers.
Who is the team behind Via Happiness?
Dragos Iulian Matei (38), Author, Multi-Award Winning Young Entrepreneur in education, Theater director and producer of shows to help children and parents learn about emotions, programmer, researcher, graduate of The University “Universitatea „Politehnica” din București” of Communication, Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, Software and telecommunications and Master of Business Administration (MBA), Economic department of the Polytechnic university, Bucharest, Romania, MBA
Bianca Nita (26), exceptional graphic developer and experienced advertising and PR professional, graduated The University of Journalism and Sciences of Communication, University of Bucharest, Master’s Degree in Multimedia and Audio-Video Production
Paul R. Rasmussen (62), professor of psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, IL. He is the Director of the Adler Child-Guidance Center at the Adler School and is a licensed clinical psychologist, Ph.D. University of Georgia (1990), Clinical Psychology Emphasis: Behavioral Medicine and Adult Clinical Psychology; M.A. Florida Atlantic University (1985) Experimental Psychology, Emphasis: Social Development; B.S. Southern Utah University (1982) Major: Psychology.
You can see this team pitching at one of the ”Pitch, Please” events in Bucharest & Cluj
Impact Startup Factory is an incubation program organized by Impact Hub Bucharest, Impact Hub Cluj-Napoca and Impact Hub Zurich, in partnership with the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation. The Social Impact Incubator is a partnership between Impact Hubs in Romania and Impact Hub Zurich to adapt an innovation and entrepreneurship methodology developed in Switzerland for growing Romanian communities through the power of startups designed for profit, people and planet. The initiative will be implemented March 2016 – February 2017 and is co-financed by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union in total value of 73,116.72 CHF.