Imagilabs: Bringing Coding to Teenage Girls, Right on Their Phones

Описание: Welcome back to Meet Swedish Startups, where we spotlight founders building companies with strong missions and practical solutions.

In this episode, we meet Dora Palfi (CEO and co-founder) and Beatriz Jonaszku (CTO and co-founder) from Imagilabs, a startup on a mission to inspire a new generation of women in tech by making coding more accessible, more social, and more fun for teenage girls.

Imagilabs started from Dora’s research at KTH, where she explored what would actually motivate girls aged 12 to 16 to engage with technology. The insight was simple but powerful: teens want self-expression, creativity, and community, and they live on their phones. So instead of forcing coding into a traditional computer setup, Imagilabs brings coding to mobile, with an app that starts visually and gradually introduces real programming in Python.

To make it tangible, they pair the app with physical programmable accessories, letting users create patterns, animations, and designs they can actually show in real life, and share with others inside the community. We talk about their user-centered approach, how workshops helped them shape the product, and why combining hardware and software is harder but also central to the value they want to deliver.

Dora and Beatriz also share their fundraising journey, how Sweden’s grants and early support programs helped them get started, why they are planning a Kickstarter launch, and how their business model combines a physical product with a subscription for the learning content.

If you care about education, tech inclusion, and building products that genuinely meet users where they are, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.