Nikki Bonus is an experienced Edtech founder and CEO of Life Skills Group, harnessing more than 20 years of deeply personal and professional experience in the development and delivery of social-emotional literacy programs for individuals, organisations, and most importantly, teachers and students. Nikki’s work has helped give voice to more than 850 schools, connecting with 20,000 teachers and 500,000 primary school children to build a continuing evidence base of what works to measure, report and implement real improvements in wellbeing for school communities.
She was one of a 100 CEOs that was invited to participate in the Google - Engage - Search Inside Yourself leadership program, San Francisco, training her to deliver Transformational Professional Development experiences backed by world experts in neuroscience, leadership, mindfulness and emotional intelligence.
Nikki comes with raw authenticity and believes that we have a social responsibility to our young people to equip them with the skills to navigate the 21st century.
She epitomises resilience having been out of home by the age of 16. The tragedies of mental health contributed to her brother taking his life at a young age. Her intrinsic motivation is the belief that no matter where you were born, no matter what family you were born into, anything is possible. Her commitment is to work in collaboration with governments, school communities to see Social Emotional and Physical Literacy as valued as academic performance.
Thus, Life skills group was founded, out of the heart of a social entrepreneur with a mission to reach all children regardless of socio-economic background. For more than a decade, Nikki’s team of 80 teachers has worked hand in hand with Principals, teachers, and students across 850 schools, reaching 500,000 primary school children, to build software and a continuing evidence base of what works for school communities.
In 2016 Nikki founded Life Skills Go as a digital solution to ensure every child globally has access to an effective, measurable and affordable social, emotional, and physical literacy education. This is a practical response to the OECD and World Economic Forum’s increasing calls for social-emotional learning to be mandated alongside core academic subjects.
Life Skills Go is an engaging, interactive online blended learning platform that produces measurable results for teachers to monitor, measure and respond to individual social and emotional student needs. After being recognised for its innovation and significant market potential, Life Skills Go earned a coveted place in the business accelerator muru-d.
Nikki is a powerful storyteller with a message of leadership, compassion, hope, kindness, and courage. It is her ability to use stories to connect and relate to others that make her unique. Her humility is a strength that allows her to nurture and build stability, connection, and flourishing in communities by engaging and educating educators, leaders, and our government. It is the inter-systematic approach to a holistic approach to the whole child that is the innovation that sets Nikki apart. It is about building global communities, empowering others to be collaborative, and creating an impactful movement. Our future generations are in all of our hands.
Nikki has delivered over 1200 professional development programs for school communities across the globe, working with Districts, Networks of Principals through to whole-school approach, there is a push to collect data, yet the question that Life Skills Go answers is not only “ How are our students” yet it provides the lessons, reporting and analytics allowing for the ability for schools and teachers to respond.