Spotlight on Alex Klein, Co-Founder of Kano
Spotlight on Alex Klein, Co-Founder of Kano
Meet Alex Klein, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of Kano Computing, selected as one of this year’s Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in education.
In 2012, Alex’ 6-year-old cousin Micah challenged him to invent a computer kit that's as simple and fun as LEGO. At the time, Alex was an amateur designer and a writer for magazines like Newsweek and the Daily Beast, in New York City.
Alex discussed Micah’s challenge with his friend Yonatan, who was a snowboarder working in the plastics industry. The two men agreed they were “totally unqualified to take on this challenge.” Yet, by December they’d named their computer concept “Kano,” after Kano Jiguro, founder of the art of judo and lifelong teacher. By January 2013, they’d written and designed the first storybook guide for their computer kit. In March, they went to China to source hardware and in April they made 200 kit prototypes in the apartment they shared in London. They based their technology on the Raspberry Pi – a $35 Linux board invented in Cambridge, where Alex was doing his master’s degree.
By August 2013, all 200 Kano prototypes sold out, via word of mouth. In November, one year after the conversation with Micah, Alex went to Kickstarter.com to raise funding for their fledgling company. Their goal was to raise $100,000 in 30 days, but they ended up with $1.5 million. They shipped their first 18,000 Kano building kits to customers in 86 countries in September 2014.
To explain their success, Alex says, “This generation just wants to pull the pieces together, build something cool and express themselves.” The Kano mission is “to give young people – and the young at heart – a simple, fun way to make and play with technology, and take control of the world around them.”
The Kano website stresses tapping into children’s creative instincts, saying, “Manuals are boring. Kano is a story. With illustrated ideas and simple steps, build a computer, make stuff, and explore a new world. Make your own characters and level up.” The Kano OS is described as, “An open-source OS for exploration, creation, and play. Code mountains in Minecraft and power-ups in Pong. Synth music and stream video. Dive into the command line. Invent something new.”
We at Envision salute Alex for giving young people a tool with which they can get hands-on experience, pursue their passions and unleash their inner technologist.
To learn more about Alex, watch his 22 minute TED presentation on YouTube, in which he turns the audience into a binary array.