Business

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More Like many parents, Dan Yang was fascinated by her young daughter’s obsession with her iPhone. As she went through the process of planning the best way to introduce her to technology, apps, and games, she quickly became frustrated with the lack of educational technology made specifically for children. Unlike most parents, however, Yang is an entrepreneur and optical engineer, so she did what any entrepreneurial, geeky mom would do: She decided to hack her own solution. Yang developed VINCI Early Learning Systems and VINCI tablets — which she believes to be the first FDA-safety-compliant tablet that is designed purely for younguns. The learning tool, as she calls it, is itself built to develop (along with the content it includes) thinking skills, social, language, and literacy abilities, along with quantita...