Genus: Bondi’s Jon Owen designs app to encourage sustainable environment practices in youth

An eastern suburbs dad has launched a new app designed to make saving the planet fun for kids, with the online application to be trialled at more than 40 schools across Australia.

Exploring the natural world sparks a sense of wonder for kids of all ages – but Bondi dad Jon Owen became worried when he noticed the state of the environment was becoming a growing source of anxiety for his own children.

“We were watching a nature documentary and there was talk about climate change, habitat destruction and things like that,” Mr Owen told the Wentworth Courier.

He said his two daughters, 10-year-old Molly and eight-year-old Eve, hit him with a barrage of questions.

Genus app co-founder Jon Owen. Photo: supplied.

“There’s an eco-anxiety which is very real,” Mr Owen said. “I don’t like the thought of this generation growing up worrying about the planet.”

With a history working for purpose-driven businesses, including a recent role as head of sales for sustainable packaging company BioPak, Mr Owen said this marked a “light bulb moment.”

Bondi dad Jon Owen worried about the “climate anxiety he saw from his young kids. Photo: supplied.

He realised his next business venture must focus on helping empower kids to believe their actions can positively impact our changing world.

The result was Genus, an app delivering ‘sustainability gamified for kids’ according to the company website.

Genus founders Craig Simon, GED Gillmore, Brent Phillips and Jon Owen. Photo: supplied.

The platform gives its bright-eyed users real-world missions which have a measurable, positive impact on the planet – the bigger the impact, the quicker they progress.

“It’s not a video game, but it is fun, because we are gamifying the experience. With avatars, lots of games, quizzes and puzzles, children will feel like they are playing,” Mr Owen said.

He developed the app – along with co-founders Craig Simon, Ged Gillmore and Brent Phillips – by originally testing games with pencils and paper at home with his daughters.

“We’d get Molly and Eve’s friends together and do a clean-up of Bondi’s basketball courts, for example,” he said. “We noticed that when you get kids together and set them on a little challenge and let them know that what they‘re doing is important, they get really competitive about who could [do] the most and they feel amazing.”

Mr Owen tested the app on his two young daughters. Photo: supplied.

Mr Owen also recognised the market potential in schools, where sustainability has been earmarked as a cross-curriculum priority but busy teachers struggle to integrate it into core subjects.

Using the app in a classroom, students can “have their maths lesson while calculating how much money they’d save by switching to a green energy provider,” Mr Owen explained.

More than 40 schools across Sydney and Wollongong have signed up to trial the program, and the Bondi father said he sees this user base spiking as the ed-tech industry grows.

Kids need to feel empowered to protect the environment, Owen said. Photo: supplied.

Off the back of the promising early market uptake, Genus is currently seeking to raise $800,000 to further develop their technology through crowdfunding equity platform Birchal.

Birchal lets everyday people invest in startups they believe in within their own community.

Mr Owen said a recent survey of 10,000 children and young people aged 16-25 years across 10 countries found 59 per cent were very or extremely worried about climate change.

Eve Owen with a friend in Bondi. Photo: supplied.

“We want to set up a system whereby kids can feel positive and actually enjoy doing the right thing.” he said.

“The mission is to make sustainability fun; to make saving the planet fun.”

Mr Owen hoped his business would shape the next generation of leaders.

“This is the future generation with the most to gain from doing it for themselves,” he said.

“If we get our target of 10 per cent penetration in the market, that‘s 10 per cent of the future CEOs, 10 per cent of our future politicians all growing up thinking instinctively about the planet.”