Mexican Female Illustrator Leads in a Booming Mobile-Education Market
Aleksa Delsol (this her ‘yogotar’) is the lead illustrator at Yogome, a Mexico-based startup and iOS gaming company to help kids globally learn through play.
Education for kids is going mobile, and it’s booming.
We recently caught up with Aleksa Delsol, the lead illustrator at Yogome, a Mexico-based startup and iOS gaming company harnessing the power of tech and design to help 21st century kids learn by simply having a lot of fun.
Now headquartered in Mountain View, Ca., after garnering support from 500 startups, Yogome has gone global since its soft launch in March. Asia is its second biggest market, following the U.S. Recently hitting 100K downloads in the Apple App Store, its nine games is about to be released for Android.
An unexpected turn of events about a year ago re-connected Aleksa with her art – a childhood passion long forgotten. Her boyfriend, Yogome co-founder Manolo Diaz, saw her old drawings and was blown away. He quickly invited her to join the team as an intern. Soon after that, Aleksa dropped out of college and quit her job go full-time and become one of Yogome’s two designers (the other is co-founder Alberto Colin). Now she brings each game’s bright colored super-smart heroes to life as they combat the evil Queen Ignorantia.
The super-smart Yogome heroes that help kids learn Math, Science, Languages, Health, and more.
“Leaving school to quit my job wasn’t brave,” Aleksa said. “It was foolish and a big risk, but I’m happy because now I’m doing what I do like the most. Leaving my home, my country and my comfort zone is insignificant compared to what I’m still looking for with Albert and Manolo in Yogome.”
Behind each game is serious business. Yogome works with a board of pedagogical advisors in charge of aligning every game with the highest worldwide educational standard to cover Math, Languages, Science, History, Geography, Health, and more.
°I think that there’s more work to do with the games in the education field,” Aleksa said. “And knowing that my job is helping kids learn makes me feel proud. I used to work as a nanny in Mexico, and I love kids and their energy, how smart and creative they are. I enjoy playing around like if I was a little one too. My nieces and a nephew who are my adoration are some of our beta testers.”
Aleksa follows the mantras ‘The only thing that limits us is ourselves,’ and ‘Done is better than perfect.’ Crediting the strong support or her parents and boyfriend, she aims to learn continually and do more, not only in her role at Yogome but as a professional.
“I think every woman can be successful as long as they dream big,” Aleksa said. “The key is to be surrounded by people who think like you, are intelligent and passionate by the project or dream you share. I know there’s a lot of women out there who have a dream and a passion to work on it but maybe they don’t know how to start. My advice is to search people near you with similar dreams, topics or interest; it could be your husband, your sister or one of your friends. You don’t need to have a college degree or a huge CV to build something.”
“Always do what you love and never feel bad because of it…the culture or situation doesn’t matter. You can quit or drop anything, but never your dreams.”
“Always do what you love and never feel bad because of it, whether you are Mexican, Indian, Chinese, or Russian; the culture or situation doesn’t matter. You can quit or drop anything, but never your dreams.”
Aleksa with with Dave McClure of 500 Startups on Mexico’s VC Demo Day.
Other sources: VentureBeat
