Occtopus

Do you want your children
to grow up without biases?
Join us on this journey!
Join now

Children learn biases at a very early age. These put them at a disadvantage in their interactions with others and can manifest in discrimination, harassment, homophobia and racism.

Occtopus counteracts this development and educates children in dealing with diversity and inequalities before prejudices become fixed in their thought patterns.

Occtopus offers games instead of stiff structures and encourages parents to question their own behavior. This is how a culture of respect can arise.

Our approach

Let’s counter biases based on race, gender, or sexual orientation! Let´s reduce stereotypes!

Sustainable

Scalable

Accessible

Are we born with bias?

We are not born with racial preferences or stereotypes, but we are definitely born with the capacity to learn them. We absorb them long before we understand what we are doing.

This is partly why it’s so difficult for people to unlearn stereotypes. We have been absorbing stereotypes since our early childhood. Some of them are so ingrained, we don’t even realize they exist:

Let’s break prejudices

It starts in the childhood...

Gender

Children learn which social categories are important by observing their environments and often being confrontation with a cognitive Puzzle to solve

Race

They collect Information from the world around them in order to actively construct their own beliefs

Orientation

In other words, children pick up the ways in which whiteness, heterosexuality, male domination, thin body size and many more is normalized and privileged

Mission

Occtopus’ mission is to achieve equity by making unconscious biases conscious in order to change our perception for a better tomorrow

Vicious cycle of unconscious bias evolution and entrenchment

1

Child observes the environment where the world is structured in social categories

2

Child develops stereotypes by making own conclusions

3

Establishes biases that lead to unfair behavior

4

Develops self-image of ``not being racist`` due to social norm and lack of open conversation

5

Biases remain undetected and unconscious

The sooner we teach our children that discrimination and racism do not lead to peace and deep happiness, the better. What Occtopus creates is long overdue. It is time that our society changes which is why I support Occtopus 100% - we are all the same!

Daniel Aminati

Currently not enough parents talk to their children about diversity

Only 10%

of parents discuss race often with their children

35%

of all parents surveyed said they never talk to their children about social class

57%

of all parents said they rarely or never talk about gender with their kids. These conversations are less likely to happen with younger children. Less than a third of parents of 3- to 5-year-old kids discuss race and ethnicity sometimes or often

Source: hechingerreport.org

Our Principles

Based on scientific knowledge

Fair Play

Iterative approach

Transparency & openness

Diverse teams

Continuous improvement

Workshops & Interaction

At Occtopus, we host Workshops for kids and parents as well as for companies in order to reduce unconscious bias.

Try for free
Job Puzzle Assign jobs to the characters

Focus stereotypes

Social roles

Estimated Time: 15 min

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Job Puzzle

With the Job Puzzle we want to recognize the effect of stereotypes and bias on the child's perception of social roles

Focus on typical stereotypes and prejudices that are reflected in the child´s answer as well as its certainty on their answers (e.g., only a certain gender or skin color is selected for low- or high-income professions).

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Matchmaker Match the couples

Effect of stereotypes and bias

Couples

Estimated Time: 5-10 min

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Matchmaker

The goal of this game is to recognize the effect of stereotypes and bias on the child's perception of social norms on romantic constellations

Focus on typical stereotypes and prejudices that are reflected in the child's answer as well as its certainty on their answers

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Ball Game Throw a ball

Focus stereotypes

Stereotypes

Estimated Time: 5 min

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Ball Game

The goal of this game is to make gender-based stereotypes in the child´s worldview visible

Focus on the behavior and see if the child shows distinct behavior on purpose, e.g., does not throw as far in one situation than in the other or makes additional noises

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ZurRoseGroup

``Great example of how diversity can be perceived positively and negatively`` ``Emre and Anja do a great job. It's the first time in my career that I hear the discussions that we are having this week in a professional context and I feel it is super important to keep developing these types of initiatives.``

Martin MangiapiaHead of PR

``As a pioneer in telemedicine, we wanted to set an example for diversity and inclusivity not only in terms of customer communication but also internally. Emre and Anja supported our employees in this and even literally inspired them - people are still enthusiastic about a fantastic workshop.``