Venture makes child’s play of technology

Techni-Kids seeks to fill a void in realm of children’s books

Gary Gigabyte is a charming fellow. He always has a smile on his face, is great at working with kids and is an expert at explaining different areas of technology.

But, despite his outgoing personality, he’s a little one-dimensional.

That’s because Mr. Gigabyte is a memory chip cartoon character found in a series of educational workbooks for kids from a Denver-based startup company called Techni- Kids (http://www.techni-kids.com).

Diane O’Neil, Techni-Kids co- founder, said even though kids are quick to pick up technology, they sometimes lack an understanding of the inner workings of computers and safety issues surrounding the Internet.

"It’s interesting what the kids don’t know," she said. "A lot didn’t know about spyware, and most of them have been in chat rooms but didn’t know what info was OK to give out and what wasn’t."

Established in January, Techni- Kids has released two main titles, The Guts of a Computer and Digital Demons – Scary Things on the Internet.

The idea for the company came to O’Neil when she was at a bookstore a few years ago and noticed that books in the children’s technology section were all about science-oriented topics, such as dinosaurs or outer space. O’Neil researched to see if there were any computer-education books out there for 9-to-12- year-olds and found nothing.

By Ryan Peacock, Special to the News

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