UNYTUS launches MVP

Jit Sihra believes character education is an essential part of the educational experience. When she started exploring how key character traits like honesty and patience were taught in schools, she discovered there was no standard curriculum or programming to teach these critical skills.

So, she decided to change that.

Sihra founded UNYTUS, a company that creates character-focused curriculum through the framework of language arts, social studies, and career readiness education standards, in 2019. To support this effort, the bootstrapped company has raised $60,000 in grant funding.

Sihra is committed to ensuring her social impact-focused startup is as profitable as it is impactful. To meet that goal, she completed a number of startup accelerator programs, including FOR-M, gBETA, and Ideadvance.

Now, the revenue-generating company has programs running in three schools and is currently piloting the program in two Milwaukee elementary schools.

MKEStartup.News (MSUN) sat down with UNYTUS founder Jit Sihra (JS) to discuss the completion of the company’s minimum viable product (MVP) and its plans for the future.

MSUN: What kind of curriculum does UNYTUS provide?

JS: “UNYTUS is a pioneering character education program designed to nurture the next generation into well-rounded, globally aware citizens. Our approach intertwines character development with cultural education, ensuring that students not only excel academically but also thrive as empathetic, responsible members of the global community. UNYTUS offers a comprehensive, ready-to-use, elementary program built on virtue traits which are embedded with character education, multicultural learning, ELA standards, social studies themes, and career and life readiness standards.”

MSUN: Your son inspired you to use superheroes to deliver the lessons in the program. Can you tell us more about that?

JS: “I have an elementary boy in my house, so if things are not interesting for him, he doesn’t want to study. Anything that comes from the school… without colored pictures or which does not give him a boost to think about that he has got some powers he doesn’t want to study. He puts it aside. That was one of the things that made us think we need to change.”

MSUN: Your users are American children. Why did you choose to present the content through the framework of different countries?

JS: “These are global stories, so that the kids are getting the flavor of that global citizenship we talk about because the world is evolving. We are not going to work in the limited communities that we live in. The globe is our market and as these kids grow up, they’re going to interact with students from other world, they’re going to with colleagues from other world in their careers. When we are building this, we are acquainting them with those people and their stories.”

MSUN: Currently the program focuses on young students. Is there a plan to reach older students?

JS: “Our first vision is to create content for elementary students and make it a robust program over the next few years. Then we will move up to middle school and high school. Middle school and high school have a lot of programs on career readiness. But we all forget that after all, these kids are also human beings. If they don’t have that resilience, perseverance and responsibility that is required to handle all of the information about careers is coming to them, there is burnout. There are mental health issues. There is so much.”

MSUN: What role did the Random Lake School District play in helping the company complete its MVP?

JS: “The Random Lake School District piloted the program last year and now they are full-fledged customers, and they are also the co-creators, so they work with us. One of the things that I learned is when you co-create a product with the customer, it has more chances of success. It’s the reason it has taken us a long time. We wanted a like-minded customer who works with us, who feels that there is a strong need, and there is no program or a product that is available to solve the need. We were fortunate to find this customer.”

Implementing the UNYTUS curriculum in the Random Lake School District evolved from a shared vision between District Superintendent Dr. Michael Trimberger and UNYTUS, marking an important milestone in the company’s development of character education programming. For additional information about the implementation of the curriculum in the Random Lake School District, as well as the impact of the lessons, click here.

To learn more about UNYTUS, click here.