Innovation

The main innovation was the business of education of emotional and social learning and character strengths and virtues in Brazilian schools. This business was the first to apply the education of emotional and social intelligence and character strengths and virtues to Brazilian schools of all levels, from the elementary to the high school level, and later to managers and leaders, using research-based teaching and science-based metrics to measure its results on students and teachers.

Another key aspect of this innovation is the capacity to transfer the academic knowledge of emotional and social intelligence and character strengths and virtues produced in research by international universities to the reality of students and teachers, adapted to each reality in Brazilian schools.

Another innovation was the service in a large-scale replicability of the educational service to 50,000 students and training of 2000 teachers through an online platform.

This innovation came through a partnership between 3 partners, one specialist in Education, another partner experienced in Business and another partner with editorial experience.
These 3 partners combined different and complementary strengths to launch this business and another aspect that facilitated the business were the strategic partnerships with Bradesco Foundation as a big client, because it allowed them, from the beginning, the design of the business oriented to large-scale clients.

Other strategic partners such as the family owners of Bradesco allowed the necessary investment in the business and made it more easily financially feasible.

Another strategic partner was Ayrton Senna Institute, that helped to fund the measurement of the impact of the educational programs on children, adolescents, and teachers. They were crucial to help to make this possible.

Inspiration

As an educator Celso, the leader of Seed Education initiative, noticed that even though many students from angle company were admitted in the best universities and courses and had high cognitive skills, many of them did not achieve academic success. He noticed that they lack some key competencies that predicted academic success such as emotional and social intelligence competences and some character strengths and virtues necessary to achieve academic success.

That was when he had the idea of launching a new business that could train not only these students in emotional and social intelligence and character strengths and virtues, but also to apply this training to all levels of education in Brazil, in private and public schools of Brazil.
It was the year of 2014 and he was deeply reflecting, based on the experience of being a father of two children, what would be his major contributions to this world. It did not have to be unique or special contribution, but it had to be something relevant to contribute to build a better world.
He noticed that he had the contacts of the most prominent educators in Brazil based on his experience in Angle company so he could have access to university Professors, High School teachers and he had access to the biggest network of educators in Brazil. So he realized that he had favorable conditions to start an innovative new business in the area of education.
So the question arose in his mind: how could he bring the best emotional and social education for high school students, for middle school students, for basic and elementary students, for university students and for managers and organizational professionals?
The quest started in 2014 and 2015 looking for the best educational programs in emotional and social intelligence for children and adolescents as well as character strengths and virtues provided in the world.

The main motivation was to provide the kids of all ages emotional and social learning as well as character strengths and virtues education, to allow the new generations to deal with the complexity of the world that waits for them, and to allow them to be more successful and happier.

Overall impact

The Seed Education, based on previous research conducted by OECD in many countries, established a partnership with Ayrton Senna Institute to measure the impact of the business in students and teachers' learning outcomes and the research and evaluation conducted showed a significant increase in Social and Emotional Learning and Character Strengths and Virtues in all 50.000 students and 2000 teachers, based on a report produced by Ayrton Senna Institute in Brazil. Now they created a validated questionnaire in all Estates of Brazil that measures the impact of the program in Brazil. This scale and questionnaire is so robust from a research perspective, that one of the best Psychology universities in Portugal will adopt it to collect data in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Hungary.

Business benefit

This innovation and the results of the measurement of the learning outcomes is very important to the business, because, in terms of business, the Seed Education has a 100% clients retention rate, 98% satisfaction from clients with a stable and positive impact in all 50.000 students and 2000 teachers throughout Brazil.

Social and environmental benefit

The benefits for Society are huge, reported by all the students and teachers. The teachers report stronger emotional self-control and more frequent positive emotions, all the students report a significant increase in emotional and social intelligence and character strengths and virtues based on the OECD model, and they also report an increase resilience in dealing with COVID-19, more frequent positive emotions and happiness.

Interviews

Celso Lopes de Souza, Co-Founder

Celso Lopes de Souza, Co-Founder