(March 3, 2023) Whether it’s India’s former defence secretary, Ajay Kumar, Professor Gerardo Ceballos, Mexico’s ‘guardian of the jaguar’, oceanographer Hannah Whitby, entrepreneur Bhargav Sri Prakash who is known for the Digital Vaccine Project or Kargil war veterans Brigadiers Amardeep Singh and Sushil Bhasin, the list of guests on eleven-year-old podcaster Siyona Vikram’s show is impressive.
Starting in 2020 when she was just eight, Siyona has managed to reach out to people in over 1500 cities across 91 countries with her podcast – Little Mind Chats through 123 episodes so far. “My guests agree to come to my show because it’s a unique and fascinating experience for them to be interviewed by a child,” remarks the class six student of Jain Heritage School, Bengaluru.
Siyona Vikram
Since its launch, Little Mind Chats has garnered immense appreciation and accolades. It won the Golden Crane Podcast Award by Asian American Podcasters Association (AAPA), an organisation that recognises and increases visibility of Asian and Asian-American podcasters. The show also became a final slate nominee in 2021 for the most prestigious global award in podcasting – The Podcast Awards – founded by Todd Cochrane, the US-based CEO of a podcast media company that represents more than 105,000 podcasters.
Siyona became the youngest speaker at the world’s largest podcasting event – the Podcast Movement. Since then, there has been no looking back for the youngster, who has been invited to speak at various online international platforms.
The UK-born podcaster does not just spread knowledge through her guests but also makes an impact with her ‘Little WISE’ initiative, raising awareness about hazards of plastic toys on children’s health and their negative impact on the environment when discarded. “‘WISE’ stands for Warriors Inspiring Sustainable Earth,” Siyona tells Global Indian.
Turning heads
It’s not just about connecting to global audiences. Recently, Siyona won the hearts of villagers in rural Karnataka in an All India Radio interview in her mother tongue, Kannada. “Several people reached out to us praising Siyona’s initiatives,” says her mother Geetha. “Even The Guardian covered Siyona in its story of pre-teens from different parts of the world who are already veteran hosts,” she adds.
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Siyona’s Little Mind Chats, now in its seventh season, revolves around ‘finance for kids’. The previous six seasons covered vital topics like health, space, education, earth and environment, and the spirit of sports.
Though Little Mind Chats’ target audience is aged between five to 15, the podcaster often receives words of praise from even parents who say they enjoy her podcasts as much as their kids.
It all started when…
“When I was seven or eight, I discovered that something is amiss in our education system,” she says adding, “I was going to school like any other kid but simultaneously, due to my quest to learn new things, I would explore things outside the school syllabus like culture, bio diversity, climate, space, technology, inventions, and much more. I realised that there is need for some conversations tailored towards children to remove the disconnect between what is taught in school and what one learns outside of it. This is how Little Mind Chats came into picture.”
The podcaster was determined to edutain people. “There were some podcasts that were entertaining because they were narrating stories, while others focused on educating kids. I wanted to combine both.”
Pollution in our oceans has a Direct impact on climate change. Listen to @copperchemist, Hannah Whitby, an Oceanographer who closely studies how oceans are affected by human activity @livunioceansci
Listen here-》https://t.co/m1SJdRQMcI#climatechange #oceanpollution #podcast pic.twitter.com/NwUUMwUBS9
— LittleMindChats (@LittleMindChats) May 1, 2021
She brushed up her interviewing skills by first inviting friends on her show and gradually scaled up, getting lucky in hosting the most seasoned professionals from India and abroad. “There have been 21,000 downloads of my podcasts so far,” she reveals.
The numbers grew organically, even with minimal efforts at marketing the show. “I am a minor and minors are not supposed to be out there in the social media without adult supervision so my parents take care of whatever little promotions we do” Siyona says.
Finding support in her mother
Supporting Siyona every step of the way is her mother, Geetha. An engineer like her husband, Geetha now works with her daughter full-time, providing complete backend support. She has also supported Siyona’s Little WISE initiative, ‘say no to plastic’.
The mother-daughter duo approach schools to get students to join the club and also organise on-campus collection drives once a month. The collected plastic is sent to a Pollution Board approved recycler who recycles the plastics into agricultural pipes.
Siyona Vikram with her mother Geetha
More than 400 school children from Bengaluru are associated with the initiative. “We have gamified the entire system so that our eco warriors find the whole process interesting and are motivated to return,” shares Siyona, who plans to engage more children in the cause. “Our minds are little, but not our thoughts,” she signs off.
