We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ritika Sehgal& . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ritika below.

Ritika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

Our education systems were designed during the industrialization in the 18th century, and have not adapted well to our changing needs for the current environment.

As a parent of young (elementary) learner, I know that – I do not want to limit his imagination or put constraints on how he learns. I want to make learning enjoyable, as a life-long passion that serves to create a growth-mindset.

Fortunately the recent pause has offered us an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine our education and reengage in a way that is most effective for the 21st Century . Since the pandemic there is been renewed focus and attention on improving learning outcomes and the timing is perfect. It’s time for us to invest to make a positive impact for the next generation…

What we need is a WHOLE child approach, with as much focus on Social and Emotional skills as Hard Skills.

Ritika, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, I am Ritika Sehgal, Owner/ Director of Challenge Island San Diego Coastal- Where we introduce kids to a world of imagination while building on important social and emotional skills, through our experiential programs. I started my professional careers as a software engineer, working in many industries before finding my calling in the Med. Tech. industry, working on providing smart solutions for improved and enhanced healthcare. I thoroughly enjoyed working in a space focused on patient safety – contributing to improved outcomes and patient care. I immensely cherished the ability to improve healthcare workflows and outcomes through effective use of technology and better user experience. I also learned through that experience I enjoy building relationships, teams, and communities. Combining my passions for technology to solve problems and nurturing relationships, I carried on a path of engineering management. My work both within and outside my organization was very gratifying.
Then came a new chapter in my life, when I had my son. As he is growing, I was always on the lookout for fun and engaging opportunities for him to enjoy and learn from. Through him, I had a realization and first-hand experience that kids absorb so much knowledge from everything around them. Everything is and can be a learning opportunity. However, I also noticed that there was too much reliance on digital media and electronics for a lot of these learning options. And while they serve well and are important, I wanted to find more hands-on, interactive, experiential opportunities where kids could learn more organically by doing, experimenting, and trying it for themself.

As I looked around for such options, sadly I did not find many, at least not as accessible or mainstream as I had hoped for.

I began exploring ideas about bringing some such programs/ opportunities for kids like my son.
Also, much like many other parents, I wanted to spend more time with him and family, where I could have more flexibility than my then job. That led me to starting my own business that would bring creative and interactive enrichment opportunities.
Since I had no experience running a business, I looked for something that I may be able to use as a base or starting point. After researching several franchises, I found Challenge Island to be the exact format that I was looking for. It was playful and unique methodology that I was excited about- the combination for developing and reinforcing hard and soft skills. I knew this could scale and adapt well for many settings beyond just early childhood education (which was my original intent).

Through Challenge Island San Diego Coastal, we help develop key social and emotional skills and a growth-mindset through our collaborative engagement workshops and events. Working with kids from 5 yrs. to 75 yrs., we believe learning is a life long journey. Using a hands-on interdisciplinary approach of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) challenges in a play-based setting we inspire critical-thinking and creativity for the 21 Century leaders!

Our interactive and engaging SEL focused approach adapts well with varying abilities of the participants and works for most age group from elementary school age children to corporate and professional teams as well as active senior adults.

We currently offer a customizable STEAM Partnership with institutions and organizations.

I want to continue build on this platform to expand the opportunities to become a platform for the communities to connect and grow together.

Our mission is to make learning fun – a life-long passion!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

It is said, ‘change is the only constant”. Clichéd as it may be, it is the truth. I have changed paths in my career often enough and with every turn, there were new learning and much to unlearn.
Coming from a long-standing corporate career is a very leadership role that I grew into, I felt, I had the right skillset for starting on my own. I had worked in start-ups and big organizations, with many different roles, so of course, had all the pre-requisites to be successful in my own business, right? Boy, was I naïve?
Setting up on my own is not as easy as I thought, in fact, there were things that I had assumed and taken-for-granted, that did not pan out as I had imagined.
I realized very soon that there was so much that I had to learn, but the biggest was the proverbial ‘entrepreneurial mindset ‘.! I was a cautious and calculated risk-taker. However, through my last few years as an entrepreneur, I have had to really learn that the appetite for risk must be really high. For the first year or so, I was very guarded and felt I need to have everything in planned and in order, for me to take the stab at anything. I felt the need for having contingency plans and backups, before I would even attempt something. This was my training having worked in a high-pressure and high-stake medical device organization.

Unfortunately, shortly after I started on my own, the pandemic shut down the world around us. For a business that was in infancy, it was a big blow. I needed to adapt or quit. Neither was an easy choice. Had many mis-steps along the way, but I figured, I owed it to myself and my family (who are my biggest supporters) to give it a real shot. Which meant, getting out of my comfort zone on having everything planned out to a great degree and having backups.
For example, I would not take on any gig or project unless I felt I would have the resources to deliver. For example, since, I was not able to hire help, teachers/ facilitators or even admin. This made it hard to keep the pipeline primed, as I was becoming the bottle-neck. And it continued to be a vicious circle.

Fortunately, I’ve met some incredible friends and community of entrepreneurs both locally and elsewhere, who helped me get out of my own way, even nudged me out of my comfort zone. Their support in many forms has helped me immensely. From cheering me, to keeping me accountable all the way to dropping everything to join, co-facilitate me on my camps, workshops, I have had the best community I could have hoped for.

And while it is still a work in progress, and I am still nervous when taking on a project which might out of my current capabilities., but with each passing day, I learning … learning to take a leap. Learning the ‘Entrepreneurial Mindset – Growth Mindset’.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My favorite and the most compelling part of our offering is the focus on Social and Emotional Development. Our methodology that focusses on a holistic approach to learning is what sets our program apart. So, obviously our program is best suited for groups and collective learning.
Since we focus a lot on Collaboration, Inclusion and hand-on activities, we had a huge impact due to COVID related shut-downs. All of our on-going or planned in-person workshops and camps were cancelled.
To continue through these challenging times, we converted and adapted our program to a virtual /online offering. And while it was the need of the hour, through this Pivot we identified many newer opportunities.
We were able to reach a much larger audience who may not have been accessible before.
Also, and more notably, we were able to design programs that can serve the growing trend for remote or distributed teams.
While we always had the options of hosting team-building/ team-bonding workshops for larger organizations, we’ve modified our format to also be an effective communication tool. With remote and distributed teams becoming more of a norm now, it is harder for teams to connect and communicate. Our workshops can serve not only as a fun and engaging team event, but can help managers and teams to learn more about communication styles, decipher effective or not-so-effective cues, support creativity and develop bonds and also help break barriers in a informal setting.
We are super excited to have this be a new and innovative way for teams to elevate their ‘Happy Hours’ .

Contact Info:

• Website: https://challenge-island.com/sandiegocoastal/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/challengeislandsdcoastal/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/challengeislandSDCoastal
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritika-sehgal/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CSdcoastal

Image Credits
Challenge Island San Diego Coastal Challenge Island Global CAJC