Listen to the full podcast segment on Mon Carnet by Bruno Guglielminetti
Émilie Delvoye, Director of Communications at Prompt, welcomes Pierre-Édouard Goriaux and Mélanie Heyberger, a highly inspiring duo who are both life and business partners. They are the creators of a screenless interactive tablet for children, which won first prize in the ALCHIMIA Grant awarded by Prompt in collaboration with E-AI last June.
Discover captivating excerpts from the podcast.
Fabli is a company that stimulates children’s imagination, independence, and overall development. You designed Fabli, a screenless interactive reader for children aged 0 to 10 (and even older, if I understand correctly), which supports their social, emotional, and cognitive development.
For our listeners, could you describe what a screenless tablet looks like… and, more importantly, how it works?
La Fabli is a small device about the size of an iPhone, slightly wider, equipped with a speaker, a communication module, and a light-up and sound-producing pad. It allows children aged 0 to 10—and even a little older—to access a rich world of content: audio stories, interactive adventures where they become the heroes, music, games, and more.
The goal is to offer children moments to relax, have fun, learn, and grow in a different way. All in a playful, caring environment… without a screen.
What problem is Fabli trying to solve?
The main problem Fabli addresses is the overexposure of young children to screens. In North America, children aged 0 to 5 spend an average of more than three hours a day in front of a screen, depriving them of many stimuli and interactions that are essential to their social and emotional development. This overexposure can have worrying consequences, including learning delays and an increase in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders, among others.
La Fabli offers a caring alternative: an interactive, screen-free tool that promotes children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development through engaging content—stories, games, music—designed to help them get to know themselves better, understand the world around them, and grow in a different way.
You are currently working on a brand new content creation platform, and it was for this project that you received first prize in the ALCHIMIA Grant. Can you tell us a little more about it?
We are very proud of this recognition, and would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Prompt and E-AI. Today, we produce all of our content in-house, while collaborating with renowned publishing houses in Quebec and Europe through licensing partnerships. Our content has attracted the interest of not only parents, but also educators, who now wish to create their own interactive experiences and integrate them into their Fabli. We have received requests from schools, daycare centers, museums, and recreation centers, all eager to offer children more immersive and engaging experiences. This is where Studio Fabli comes in: a platform that will enable the design of interactive, fun, and educational adventures. Artificial intelligence will play a creative assistant role, helping users structure their stories and design the soundscape—because not all educators are authors or actors!
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What are the impacts of the Fabli project?
First, there is a strong local economic impact. We have repatriated Fabli production to Quebec, and all our content is designed with Canadian actors—both English-speaking and French-speaking—to offer a rich experience tailored to our audience. We also collaborate with industrial partners around the island of Montreal for the manufacture of the case, electronic cards, and accessories. We are proud to contribute to the local economy, and we are committed to continuing this work by collaborating with Quebec stakeholders on the future development of Fabli. Today, the team has nine employees, and we have designed Fabli to be durable and repairable—a choice supported by the Écoleader Fund, which is accompanying us in this responsible approach.
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