In 1995, BAMTA (the Broad Alliance for Multimedia Technology and Applications) incubated the concept of an age-appropriate interactive web of "personal issues" for youth, ages 11–17. By spring 1996, the Masters program of the Monterey Institute of International Business constructed a Kidsinit business plan, and the iTVc Corporation was assisting with web design for a Kidsinit prototype.
The project's inclusion at the 1997 NASA Open House provided the impetus for the site's prototype. With CEO Eli Porat and Ensemble Solutions, Inc., "Youtopia" emerged as a working title — "Where You Are the Source and the Resource of Your Own Future."
By September 1998, thanks to Eli Porat and Cooley Godward Ltd., Kidsinit became a federally approved 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. A recent milestone: the Youtopia "mission" issue was listed in the NASA Learning Technologies Project Guide for 1999, and was a primary influence in bringing together the needs of the NASA community with second-level students at the San Francisco Academy of Art, in an exploration of the International Space Station's corporate identity.
The Youtopia web site, for children ages 7–17, is the only program undertaken by the Kidsinit Organization. It emerged to fill a gap in the needs of children to be informed, self-actualizing members of the social fabric.
Using the inherent advantages of the internet, the site crystallizes channels of information, creating a "media coherence" to raise the consciousness, productivity, and problem-solving abilities of kids. Youtopia uses peer content and best-of-breed reference segments to drive a virtual environment of teen issues, in a judgment-free, anonymous climate — encouraging kids to recognize behaviors that discourage or empower them to develop and direct their own lives.
Thirteen chapters — covering drugs, alcohol, abuse, pregnancy, gangs, as well as physical, mental, and financial well-being — bring a more distinct "window of opportunity" to those who feel trapped by day-to-day events and circumstances.
Content is broken into two distinct groups of icons: Reference and Action.
Reference icons cover factual information: body, mind, and soul icons describe the conditions of those facing the issue. Paradoxes, reactions of family and friends, legal and penal ramifications, and where to go to get connected — to local programs, help lines, publications, and media — are explored for each separate issue.
Action icons move the youth from static information into creative interaction: getting to know the sponsor, engaging in chats, reading and writing their own reactions and experiences, creating graphic expression, and understanding the issue by participating in simulated experiences.
The Kidsinit strategy is to work with outside web developers and content providers to formally and efficiently re-purpose data and imagery from a variety of sources — essentially becoming a supra-site of kid-specific, digestible information, drawing on the Associated Press, news and scientific journals, government studies and statistics, educational institutions, grants and scholarships, non-profit and community services, mentoring programs, sponsors, publishers, and cable, radio, and television programming.