Cédric O et Flore Cousin, cofondateurs de Mallow

It all started with a question

How can we help our children grow?

What if it was simply a matter of getting them talking and laughing?

We are Flore and Cédric, parents of three and four children under the age of 10. Seven children between the two of us—let’s just say that Mallow was born from real-life experience, between morning toast, evening tunnels, and a lack of time to look for answers to our parenting questions: how to fuel their imagination? Build their confidence? Develop their logic, attention, and ability to express their ideas?

One thing was non-negotiable: our children had to want to play with it on their own. Something they would spontaneously choose again and again, and which, without us even realizing it, would get them talking, thinking, imagining, and daring. Something that could take time away from screens, but not from parents.

That’s how we began to imagine Mallow: screen-free, fun enough to make us hear laughter from the bedroom all the way to the kitchen, and designed to help their little brains grow.

After talking with researchers, teachers, and child development specialists, one idea stood out: talking helps you grow. That’s how Mallow was born: interactive audio games and adventures, created with children’s authors and child development experts, in which children become the heroes.

To develop the experience you are about to discover, more than 300 children (starting with our own) played, talked, laughed, answered, tested, and sometimes gave very honest feedback on Mallow: when it comes to knowing if a game is really fun, we prefer to ask the people who matter most.

Today, we are mostly excited for Mallow to leave our home a little and enter yours. For other children to take it up, invent, answer, and laugh in turn.

Because now that Mallow exists, it's up to them to write the next chapter of the story.

Signature de Cédric et Flore
  1. Petite fille qui rit en portant la Mallow
    01

    Speech as a driver of development

    Talking helps children grow. What matters is not the number of words a child hears, but how often they speak and receive a meaningful response. These back-and-forth exchanges nurture their confidence, language, and reasoning skills.
  2. Deux fillettes qui rient en jouant ensemble
    02

    Play is the best way to learn

    Not the "educational" game forced upon a child who would rather do something else. At Mallow, joy remains the starting point: worlds that children genuinely want to enter and return to. And without even realizing it, they engage their attention, memory, and logic. 
  3. La Mallow allumée posée sur un lit d'enfant
    03

    AI at the service of the child, not the other way around

    AI serves one purpose: to understand what your child says, adapt the game to their level, and have them react accordingly, within a framework designed by our authors. It is governed by strict rules on safety, privacy, and the child's well-being.

Our design studio

At Mallow, stories are written together: dozens of people from different trades come together to create a Mallow adventure.

It takes an average of 5 months to create a Mallow audio game.

  1. Flore, directrice de création de Mallow, au travail avec les figurines

    The creative director

    Flore outlines the adventure and the skills it will develop.

  2. Emmanuelle et Gaëlle, expertes en sciences cognitives chez Mallow

    The cognitive science experts

    Emmanuelle and Gaëlle refine these skills and define the main educational guidelines.

  3. Les auteurs des jeux audio Mallow

    The authors

    They design the characters, including the main figure of each game, and write the first draft of the adventure with the Narrative Designers.

  4. Les narrative designers de Mallow au travail

    The narrative designers

    They bring adventure to life and transform the child into a hero. They are the ones who create the interactive scripts in our game engine.

  5. Les designers des figurines Mallow

    The designers

    They bring our figurines to life, drawing them in 2D first and then in 3D.

  6. Une chanteuse enregistre une musique originale pour un jeu Mallow

    The composers and singers

    They compose and record all the original music for the adventure.

  7. Un sound designer crée l'ambiance sonore d'un jeu Mallow

    The sound designers

    They add the sounds and atmosphere that bring the adventure to life.

  8. Une maman et son fils, famille pionnière, testent un jeu Mallow

    The Pioneer Families

    Gratiela, Aurélie and their children (like all the other pioneer families in Mallow) test every episode of every adventure at home.

The adventure is ready to be shared with new players!

5 months

on average to create an adventure

300+

families have co-created this adventure with us

6000+

sessions played by children

Our Scientific Advisory Board

Bringing together renowned researchers specializing in cognitive neuroscience, child development, language, and human-machine interaction. We consult them at every stage of the development of Mallow and our content.

Grégoire Borst, professeur de psychologie du développement
Grégoire Borst
Professor of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience of education at Université Paris Cité and director of LaPsyDÉ 
Adele Diamond, professeure en neurosciences cognitives du développement
Adele Diamond
 Canada Research Chair Professor in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia and executive functions specialist 
Alex de Carvalho, maître de conférences en psychologie du développement
Alex de Carvalho
 Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at Université Paris Cité, specializing in language acquisition in early childhood.
Justine Cassell, chercheuse à Inria Paris
Justine Cassell
Researcher at Inria Paris, holder of the PRAIRIE Institute International Chair, and professor at Carnegie Mellon University 
Logo Université Paris Cité
Logo The University of British Columbia
Logo Université Paris Cité
Logo Inria
Fillette à lunettes qui joue avec la Mallow et des cartes sur la table
Fillette à lunettes qui joue avec la Mallow et des cartes sur la table

The teachers by our side

From the very beginning of the project, Emmanuelle, our cognitive science expert, brought together a group of preschool and primary school teachers to help design the initial activities. Together, they helped create age-appropriate executive function activities and tested and challenged them to ensure they fit naturally into play. Thank you to Amélie (1st grade), Camille (preschool & kindergarten), Monique (nursery, preschool & kindergarten), Stéphanie (4th & 5th grade), and Valérie (kindergarten & preschool).

This hands-on expertise complements that of the researchers, creative teams, parents and, above all, the children.

Trois enfants qui rient en jouant ensemble à la Mallow

What if they were next?

Help your children find their voice, dare to express themselves, and unleash their imagination.

Discover Mallow