Purple Isosceles and Nine Helix – aka Purple and Nine — are two cartoon characters you’re going to hear (lots) more about. These 10-year-old girls solve problems through technology.
Inspired by two Israeli women – Rebecca Rachmany and Miriam Lottner – with more than a dozen years’ experience in the technology world, the planned 12 webisodes are meant to encourage more girls to become women who want to become high-tech entrepreneurs.
Think GoldieBlox, for the next age group.
“We come from the same backgrounds as GoldieBlox,” Rachmany tells ISRAEL21c, referring to the toys designed to inspire future female engineers. “We are also frustrated with how few women are in technology, but we’re for girls who graduated from GoldieBlox. We’re the natural next step.”
The five-minute episodes are aimed at ages eight through 12.
The premise is that Purple, who loves technology, and Nine, who wants to save the world, join together to solve the world’s problems using new inventions.
Rachmany says that girls still need to be inspired to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). And to do that, her team has chosen the platform of cartoons.
“We want girls to dream big, and the way to do that is to show them examples they relate to,” the creators write on their indiegogo campaign page
“Purple and Nine are girls who enjoy tech, but also like fuzzy animals, music, and cool jewelry. Well, at least Purple does. Nine doesn’t care so much about what she wears or what people think of her. She just wants to save the world, and she’s glad Purple is her best friend, because Purple is good at inventing things.”
‘We can do anything’
Many in the film business would tell the founders of Gangly Sister Productions – the company behind Purple and Nine — that they’re crazy to create a 3D-animated television series without the backing of a big animation studio.
But Rachmany says that like her characters, her team of technologists, an animator, a pastor-scriptwriter and two child actors, follows the tenet “We can do anything.”
“The underlying message and energy behind [our project is that] if nobody tells us we can’t do it, we’ll do it,” she says. “That’s the spirit of the animation and that had us make it in the first place.”
Purple and Nine’s pilot webisode launched in January. Purple is voiced by Rachmany’s daughter, Maya; Liat Shapiro, the daughter of US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, voices Nine.
The pilot has gotten great feedback, says Rachmany. Now, the team hopes its crowdfunding campaign will surpass the $50,000 goal to help launch all 12 episodes of “girls having hilarious adventures with technology.”
The show is already being translated into Mandarin and Spanish.
“Our goal is to reach one million girls worldwide,” Rachmany tells ISRAEL21c. “We want to have a million girls look at the world and see how they can change it through technology.”
For more information, see http://igg.me/at/GanglySIster
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