About YUVA Studio

Founded in 2006, YUVA Studio Inc. has a mission to design and develop innovative products and services that nurture creative minds, everywhere. Based in Toronto, our studio spans continents and oceans via our network of collaborators and advisors. At YUVA, we are always up to something — developing a mystery shape swatch, finessing our navigation tools, or brainstorming for a new product. We are already at work on the next set of activities and features for YUVA to extend its capabilities and expand its context. Later this year new versions of YUVA will be available in French and Spanish.

How YUVA Studio was born

If Necessity is the mother of Invention, is Inspiration its father? New parenthood is life-changing for most of us and the founders of YUVA Studio are no exception! The birth of our child provided the inspiration to create environments that foster self-expression, promote individual identity and boost confidence in young children. Several conceptual models were incubated and reviewed before this current archetype was identified and developed. Our brainstorming sessions lasted for months – between diaper changes and feeding sessions, what with the many extra waking hours that presented themselves along with our newborn infant. Now our child is walking and YUVA too has found its feet.

People behind YUVA

Parth Upadhye, Founder, CEO and Creative Lead
Parth is a Graphic Designer and Visual Artist with an educational background in Engineering and Business Administration, who is always pursuing intelligent design — elegant solutions that combine visual clarity with technical effectiveness. He has worked in teams and independently on multimedia and print advertising and communications projects, in several languages, and for diverse markets. YUVA is Parth’s brainchild and he has been involved in all aspects of its Design, Development, Testing, Marketing and Communications.

Jayashri Deshmukh, Co-founder and Design Lead
Jayashri is an Architect and Visual Artist who has worked on public projects, including educational spaces for children, in India, the United States and Canada. She has put her problem-solving and design skills to work in the development of YUVA’s activity modules, shape swatches and ideabooks and is the project’s resident Editor and Collaboration Coordinator.

Uma Pandit, Technical Lead and Strategist
Uma is a Web Developer, currently working as a Senior Technical Leader with a Marketing Agency. She is most excited when technology is pushed to its limits for the generation of innovative web architecture. She’s discovered that all-nighters can stretch well past university days in the development of YUVA.

YUVA Studio Newsroom

June 1, 2006
Toronto design studio announces launch of an online product that stimulates creativity

March 2, 2006
Testers will play and create drawings to share with friends and family

It has taken a global village to raise this child!

We have been generously assisted by many — our community of parents, educators, designers and children — and to them we are so very grateful.

Kid Collaborators
Erica, Brandon, Shumona, Jacob, Rahul, Gargi

Collaborators
Fabio Deguchi, Bethelene Hart DaCosta, Mary Moffat Johannson, Sandeep Kapur, Susana Loucano, Sarah Low, Vidya Nath, Marianne Perko, Gabrielle Rossit

Advisors
Thomas Caro, Pradnya Chauhan, Sara Dorkenwald, Michele Gucciardi, Stephen Hopkins, Sandra Iskandar, Zhenfu Lin, AnaMaria Llanos, Pamela Mahal, Purnendu Nath, Bikram Sidhu, Sonali Singal, Neera Sohoni, Rupali Steinmeyer, Yeshwant Upadhye 

Kids like YUVA
» YUVA is cool!
» I can make any drawing I like with these shapes – sharks, robots, houses, cartoon characters… anything!
» I can send my drawings to my friends and to Grandma and they write and tell me what they like

Parents like YUVA
» I love innovative tools for children - YUVA makes my child think and create using their imagination
» I like looking at the Sketchbook to see the my child's ideas and to see the variety of the drawings he makes
» It's a wonderful activity for us to share – we draw together and send custom greetings to family and friends