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Passing the Cultural Baton with Shoonya

“ ‘Our children don’t have heroes that show cultural representation. Can we create a platform for all languages and cultures to have representation?’

Rashi Bahri Chitnis made sure the answer to that question was “yes.” She is the CEO and founder of Shoonya, a Santa Barbara-based company creating edutainment content to introduce and expose children to various languages and cultures. The app currently has five languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi and Telugu.”
by LAYA NEELAKANDAN

Feature: Passing on the Cultural Baton with Shoonya

August 1, 2021 — Seema Weekly profiles Rashi Bahri and her quest to bring cultural representation to the ed-tech landscape with Shoonya Kids. View the article here.

Shoonya Named Best Telugu Learning App for Beginners

April 13, 2022 — Language resource website Langoly has named Shoonya the best Telugu learning app for beginners. Read the full article here

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Shoonya Collaborates with Redfin

January 12, 2022 — Redfin compiled a list of ways to enhance learning at home for kids and invited Shoonya to share our best tips. Read the full article here

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Feature: Moms With Apps

June 11, 2021 — Mom’s With Apps profiles Shoonya Kids latest release and new features in their App Report Friday

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Shoonya CEO & Founder Wins Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award

May 28, 2021 — Founder of language & cultural learning app receives honor from Women’s Economic Ventures and wins award in the category of Science & Technology.

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Orange County's Tech Coast Angels Invests in Shoonya

Tech Coast Angels (TCA) Orange County is pleased to announce its investment in EdTech startup Shoonya, which is pioneering the digital language learning industry for children.

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Make Language Learning Fun for Kids With Shoonya Kids

The app teaches children about alphabets, pronunciations, animal names, and new cultures to help prepare them to meet the World Language Readiness Standard. Through animated characters, the app celebrates all forms of culture via its curriculum and teach children the core principles of equity and inclusion through a diverse cast of fun characters.

App Advice

Shoonya Kids: Make learning new languages fun for the whole family

Make learning new languages fun for the whole family. Help your child learn to speak, read and write in up to seven languages through games and playful characters in Shoonya Kids!

Parentology Parenting in the digital age

New Language Learning App For Kids Delivers Big Benefits

Speaking and reading a second language offers huge benefits, but if you remember high school Spanish class you know it can be tough. However, teaching children from a young age makes it easier and gives them an edge. Now, a new language learning app for kids is also giving them a leg up like never before.

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Charting Her Course Podcast With Shoonya’s Rashi Bahri Chitnis

Rashi Bahri Chitnis is the Founder and CEO of Shoonya, a children’s language app thoughtfully designed to foster the next generation of global citizens. Shoonya’s mission is to teach children different languages while integrating different forms of cultural diversity.  Listen to how Rashi transitioned from a successful career in Hollywood to changing the game in the tech industry (Pacific Coast Business Times).

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Shoonya Kids Is Educational App Store Certified

Shoonya Kids app is ambitious in the number of languages it incorporates. It not only covers some of the most widely spoken languages but plenty of others too. Each one is accompanied by clearly spoken words to ensure that learners get their pronunciation correct from the start. 

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Shoonya Brings Online Language Education to Preschool Set

August 21, 2020 — It’s been back to the garage for virtual language education startup Shoonya, but that’s not stopping it from targeting scale and expanding its platform to new devices. (Pacific Coast Business Times)

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Shoonya Digital CEO Rashi Bahri Chitnis With The Industry Show

Rashi Bahri “Everyone is talking about Diversity today. The most impressionable age for a human is when we are children. What influences do we have, what kind of games are we playing, what dolls do we own? Before we teach culture, there first needs to be a happy association with cultural representation and that’s what we focus on.” 

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Shoonya Digital CEO Rashi Bahri Chitnis With TieSoCal Women’s Series

July 30, 2020 — Shoonya Digital CEO Rashi Bahri Chitnis and Xandra Laskowski discuss growth advice for startups in the midst of COVID-19.

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Shoonya Digital: After Hindi, Indian American Entrepreneur Now Aiming for Other Indian Languages

December 3, 2019 — Shoonya Digital was born out of Rashi Bahri Chitnis’s desire to teach her son to speak Hindi. A work assignment that involved delving into the mind of a child made her understand that a child’s mind does most of its learning during the first 10 formative years…

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Shoonya App Helps Children Learn New Languages and Cultures

August 23, 2019 — Rashi Bahri Chitnis saw her young son glued to the TV, watching cartoons and learning his ABCs, and she wanted to find a more productive way for him to consume technology. A native of India, she also wanted a way for him…

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Feature: Moms With Apps

Feb 22, 2019 — Kids can create their own avatar (with an impressive range of faces) then learn the Hindi alphabet. The app includes pronunciation, tracing letters, animated characters, and puzzles along with very good production values…

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Feature: 7 Ways To Get Bilingual With Toka Parent

February 18, 2019 — Hindi Play & Learn – Shoonya is an iOS app from Shoonya Digital. In this tech era, where education is via internet and technology, this is a fun way to learn Hindi.

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Feature: Moms With Apps

February 16, 2018 — Watch, play with, interact with and dress up animals while learning the names of fourteen farm animals in nine different languages: English, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu and Gujarati… 

App Advice

Feature: App Advice

February 16, 2018 — Shoonya Farm Animals will educate and entertain. It includes three different modes: Create, Play and Watch. The three modes offer different ways to teach your child the names of 14 farm animals as well as common phrases in nine languages…

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NBC NEWS: Festival Brings Online South Asian Children's Content Community into Real Life

October 31, 2016 — When Preethi Chandrasekhar helped launch Indian Moms Connect (IMC) — a South Asian-focused parenting blog — in 2011, there weren’t many resources available about children’s content, she said. That’s why, after five years of reviewing books and providing tips online, her organization… 

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Help Kids Re-Connect with India

October 17, 2014 — In this month of festivities, Shoonya, an edutainment company Based in Santa Barbara, California just created the perfect Diwali gift for children, through its launch of ‘Hindi Play & Learn’ that has become the fastest grown Hindi app on the app store. Now, learning about Indian culture…