Out of the box

FROM primary school since the age of 11 to secondary school, Sheena Moh and Teo Jin Hui were both in the same class and after experiencing work in different fields, the best friends of 22 years decided to start a business together and made it their full-time career.
They started Atom & The Dot, a subscription box business based on education for children. Founded for kids aged between five and eight, each box is filled with materials and instructions for arts and science inspired activities and experiments. Kids can do each of the activities by following the instruction book provided.

"Parents are sending their children to tuition centres at an early age, but they also need fun, so we came up with this idea of activities that mix education and fun," Moh said.
Children would normally feel learning is difficult and boring, but Moh and Teo challenged themselves to curate activities that help kids explore the wonders of the complicated world in the simplest way.
Coming from different backgrounds, both of them have set their minds to ensure their self-funded business will have good results by giving their full attention to it.
They both believe kids should appreciate how art and science work together and be curious of how problems are solved through their subscription box.
"The idea was already founded in US and Japan as they wanted to distinguish the importance of developing art and science together, in order to bring up better-thought students. This is the first time we are bringing it to Malaysia," Teo said.
"We should be thinking about our kids' future in a different way; to grow their skills to be equal to our technology and lifestyle," Moh added.
The 33-year-olds decided to have a little fun with their business since most of the businesses nowadays are related to fashion. They believed that early childhood education is important to develop different ways of learning, and that was how they founded the subscription box.
"Kids don't really know about magnets and how they work, for example. They just read it in textbooks, but if they see it in the subscription box, they can use the magnet to experiment with some coins, and how they work with each other," Teo said.
Through this, kids will be surprised to see the results allowing them to think further and question how does it work.
"Although this is a new platform, we are happy we started it. Our aim is to alter the way people think of education for kids," Moh said.
To bring the business further, they are now planning to do roadshows and promote their subscription boxes in schools.