In an increasingly digital world full of fake news, phishing, chatbots and clickbait, media literacy is more important than ever. The Frisian startup Mediajungle therefore wants everyone to be able to participate safely and media-wise in digital society. With special attention to people who are often at the back of the queue when it comes to accessing knowledge and learning skills. They do this with serious gaming.
Mediajungle was officially founded in 2024, but the idea behind it originated back in 2017, when co-founder and current director Niels Bloembergen was working in healthcare. 'My roots are in the treatment and guidance of young people with mild intellectual disabilities,' Bloembergen said. 'These are people who often struggle with the speed and complexity of our society. And I noticed that digitization and an increasingly online world often created more problems than it really helped these young people.'
Serious gaming
"I may be putting it in somewhat of an exaggerated way, but it's a bit like the principle of the canary in the coal mine," Bloembergen continues. 'After all, a problem in society is often the first to be identified with this group. I don't solve that problem all of a sudden, of course, but I also noticed that it was not a topic of discussion, not even among the other supervisors and therapists. Within the care institution where I worked at the time, we therefore decided to develop something to get that conversation going,' continues Bloembergen. 'That can be done very well with serious gaming, because that is a very attractive and especially fun way to learn something, where the game is not the goal, but a means.'
It became a combination of board game and app, in which the content could be adapted continuously. The idea was submitted for a challenge by Netwerk Mediawijsheid and emerged as the winner. 'Jorrit van Kaam and Remco van der Steen of Klare Koek were responsible for the technical side, but we also realized the design, the look and feel and the gameplay together. That was a golden match, because together we managed to turn it into a really cool game,' says Bloembergen. 'The healthcare institution where I worked saw itself primarily as a booster of the idea and had no plans to develop the game further. So the three of us continued with Mediajungle.'
When we released the game and started developing it further, we suddenly saw the huge demand. Not only healthcare institutions, but also schools, libraries and childcare centers were eager for this kind of material, because there simply wasn't any. Digital literacy and media literacy will soon also become part of the national curriculum of elementary, secondary and special education. So the principle of the canary in the coal mine turned out well, and we suddenly had something with which we could help solve a much broader social problem.'
Scaling up
The first few years we worked on Mediajungle in our own time," says co-founder Jorrit van Kaam. 'Remco and I also had our work with Klare Koek and Niels also had his one-man business on the side. But we eventually got to the point where we really had to take steps, because we saw a great need that will only grow in the future. And if you want to make a lasting impact or difference as an entrepreneur, that just includes good business. You also don't want to be dependent on the whims of politics or funds and grants. It was also a logical time for us to scale up and look at funding.'
Funding was found with FOM and the Donor Impact Invest Fund (DIIF). Digital literacy is a hot topic and a major social challenge and Mediajungle knows how to respond to this in a very nice and impactful way,' says investment manager Jonathan Tol on behalf of FOM. 'They were also participating in the investor and market readiness programs, so we had also been in contact with them for a while. As an impact startup, they also fit our profile well and are a great asset to the region, so we are happy to help them with their plans to scale up further.'
If it were easy, everyone would do it
We benefited greatly from the entire investment process, because it forces you to take a really good look at your plans and your proposition," says Van Kaam. In the beginning you sometimes think: is all this really necessary? You sometimes have to figure things out again, but it turns out to be very valuable and it helps you make better decisions.'
'We got a lot of help from the FOM and when we ran into something we were often told: if it was easy, everyone would do it,' Bloembergen adds. 'That is a message I now like to preach myself as well. It is very good to look at your company with a critical eye and much more valuable than just accepting a bag of money, so to speak, and then doing something with it yourself.'
International ambitions
We want to use the investment for further professionalization," says Van Kaam. For example, in the area of marketing and sales we want to make everything more professional, because that is important for us to be able to reach a larger target group. And we also have big plans to enter Europe. We see interest from several European countries. We are already active in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, for which we also have a Belgian check on the content we create there.'
And given the fact that digital literacy and media literacy are now also getting a permanent place in education and schools are now starting to work with them, we really want to focus on that and connect very well with it,' adds Bloembergen. 'That is a very big wish for us and that means that with that we also want to have everything we make independently accredited by the RIVM, so that we can show that we meet the quality standards and that our interventions are really effective. We want to have that completed soon. And then we will also be the first in the Netherlands on this topic, from Friesland.'