Meet the KneoExplorers

Laila is a leader. Her ability to inspire others and her positive outlook makes everyone want to follow and spend time with her. Laila doesn’t always want to be a leader though, it makes her uncomfortable. She worries she might not make the right decisions and lead everyone in the wrong direction. She thinks being a leader is a big responsibility and she doesn’t always feel confident to lead. However, Laila is an excellent leader because she always thinks of others and has the team’s best interests in mind when she makes decisions. Laila spends a lot of time painting and drawing and she finds her energy when she creates with Soha and Tanya writing poetry, writing music, and dancing. You can often find them in the garden, giggling and happy.

Alfie is a natural leader with a strong empathic ability to know and identify what everyone is feeling around him. He uses his droid, KB1, to communicate, and needs KB1 to prompt him in certain social situations. Alfie designs puzzles and other kinds of brain games for his team to solve. He loves to stump them, but feels most happy when they finally solve his puzzles and then beg him for more. Alfie’s leadership skills blend well with Koko, Laila, and Emma. His ability to collaborate with others makes him a valuable team member and leader for the KneoExplorers explorations and challenges.

Koko’s a genius with numbers. His ability to understand and use numbers to tell stories is extraordinary. Koko’s ability to read, analyze and use numbers to communicate information helps the team with gathering data and using the data to inform decisions. Koko is hilarious too. His funny sense of humor is smart and kind. The other KneoExplorers laugh until their stomachs hurt whenever he gets started with his antics. Since Koko is also one of the older KneoExplorers, he helps lead the team and can always be counted on to use his genius and empathy to make positive decisions with the others that always work out best for the team.

Give Mei any problem and she can solve it, no problem is too difficult. She plants and grows seeds everywhere – outside, in her room, in the kitchen, in closets. You never know what kinds of plants Mei will try to grow next. Mei’s abundant love for all living things guides her mission to learn about and support sustainable systems on all the planets. Her friends love that she is always willing to help, though sometimes she helps too much.

JJ knows everything about wellness and nutrition. Feeling sad? JJ can help with lots of ideas about ways to work through sadness and when to ask for more help. Feeling hungry? JJ spends a lot of time playing with Zoe and Annan in the kitchen, creating and concocting new dishes to eat. JJ sometimes worries about taking risks though, he likes to play it safe. Luckily he has teammates that encourage him to have more fun and take safe risks. Even though JJ can feel anxious and uncomfortable sometimes, he knows many strategies to help him work through his feelings and feel better.

Emma loves exploring. She is fearless and always willing to take chances and risks. The other KneoExplorers have to remind her that she needs to be at least a little careful sometimes to keep her safe. Emma is also curious about everything. She is always asking questions and if she cannot find the answer herself, she goes to her teammates to help her answer her questions. Emma is a leader and her high energy level makes everyone else tired, but even great leaders need to stop and rest.

 Woof is KneoWorld’s wonder dog. Woof’s ability to empathize with others makes him an important teammate to all the KneoExplorers. His intuitive nature allows him to connect with everyone in their very own way. Whether the crew has had a long day of time travel or in between solving a very important problem he is there to support the team. Woof loves a great healthy helping of the best dishes (with Annan his co-conspirator), he loves the outdoors, and is always eager to explore with the team—especially the energetic Emma.

Jeff has been an engineer since he was a toddler. He spent many days using blocks, pillows, and anything else he could find to build structures and destroy them with one swift kick. Jeff and Woof make a strong team. Jeff and Woof listen to the problems and needs of others, and quickly prototype solutions. These solutions might or might not work, but that is okay, Jeff accepts failure as an opportunity to learn. At first glance, Jeff seems like he would rather be left alone, but he is really a party animal when given the chance.

Andres loves blocks, mazes, and puzzles. With an eye for detail he’s always focused on the big picture. Andres loves to create healthy and beautiful environments for people to live with nature. He likes to spend his time thinking, he analyzes everything. Sometimes he spends so much time thinking that it can take him a long time to get things done. People might think he’s daydreaming and goofing off, but Andres is really just taking his time to analyze things from every angle and to have a complete understanding.

Annan creates beauty with plants and nature. You can often find Annan with Zoe and Soha in the garden and JJ in the kitchen. Food is Annan’s passion, working with JJ to find the health benefits of different kinds of foods and working with Zoe and Soha to learn more about their bold new food findings (Zoe grown, Soha gathered). Annan then combines what he learns about different plants’ health benefits and their natural, colorful beauty to create some of the most amazing dishes you have ever seen, smelled, touched, and tasted. Annan also loves working with numbers and science. Koko often comes to Annan for help to read and understand the data he collects. Many people don’t know that chefs are scientists and mathematicians. Cooking is science!

Seth is an expert communicator. He pays close attention to what people say and what people do (he knows communication is not always about what people say). Seth likes to combine science with technology to give people new ways to collaborate and share ideas with each other. He is a leader and always listens to his teammates’ ideas and thoughts. Seth’s brain works fast, sometimes he is impatient with others and loses his temper. Seth wants to make all the worlds in the solar system better, but he often focuses on the problems so much that he forgets to notice the good things too.

Zoe loves being outside and she feels at peace with nature. Her dream is to live on a large farm surrounded by animals, fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Zoe explores how plants can be used for clothing, medicine, and delicious food. She is also extremely creative with experimenting different ways to mix and prepare plants in colorful combinations to eat. Zoe’s ideas can be tastier to Zoe than the other KneoExplorers though. The others are not as excited to eat the new exotic root vegetables Zoe digs up.They think some of her new findings taste more like dirt than food, but Zoe never gives up, always looking for new sustainable ways to use nature.

Soha sees colors and movement around her every waking minute of her day. Her colorful spirit engages all her senses. She loves to notice all the beautiful things she sees. She is the first to hear all the noises in her environment. She smells all the lovely and not so lovely odors around her. Soha touches everything, she wants to experience the feel of things she sees (are they soft? Rough? crunchy?). Soha believes her sense of taste is so strong that she can learn a lot about new food items just with one taste of something.Soha’s extraordinary ability to tune into her senses can overwhelm her though. It gives her so much information that she tires easily and needs to recharge many times during the day.

Tanya never sits still, she is always moving and creating. Her love of dance inspires her to study and learn about people from all over the solar system and their cultures. Tanya speaks over twenty languages and is an expert language interpreter. Others sometimes see Tanya’s love to create as messy and unorganized which makes Tanya feel sad. She wants to use what she learns about other cultures to create dances and movements to tell stories, but her everyday KneoExplorer duties take so much time she does not always make time to create.