Monica Plath: Supporting and Celebrating All Caregivers in our Modern Village

Ladderworks is a publishing platform of diverse picture books and online curriculum with the mission to empower over a million kids to become social entrepreneurs. Our current series features interviews by our interplanetary journalist Spiffy with inspiring Social Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Builders, who are advancing the UN SDGs. 

Welcome back! Spiffy here, your interplanetary journalist reporting from Planet Earth with an eye on entrepreneurs working to make this world more equitable. Today I’m super excited to speak with Monica Plath, the founder and CEO of Littlebird Connected Care who is focused on SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being.

Spiffy: Hey, Monica, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to tell us all about Littlebird. What’s the challenge you’re addressing?

Monica: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! Imagine if you knew that your child was okay, from anywhere. Littlebird gives parents peace of mind when they are apart from their child, so they can be fully present when they are together. Our mission is to celebrate and support the contributions of all caregivers to strengthen the modern village and provide our children with the best possible care.

Spiffy: This is such an important service to provide. May I ask what motivated you to do it?

Monica: As a working mother, I tried to buy this solution, and it did not exist. The general childcare crisis and shortage of support for parents and the care community led me to this gap in the care economy which used to keep me awake at night!

Spiffy: How are you and Littlebird working towards a more equitable world?

Monica: Littlebird believes that care should be effortless and transparent. Currently, we know more information about our dogs when they are being walked with Wag or Rover than we do about our children when in other's care.

Spiffy: Tell me about a recent organizational milestone. What impact does that make on your community?

Monica: We recently were honored by Fast Company alongside Oura Ring and Fitbit for Wellness Design and Innovation - proving that early stage companies CAN make an impact and that this genre is ripe for disruption.

Spiffy: Please share an experience when you faced failure and didn't give up. What did you learn from it?

Monica: It took me six months of "dating" around the tech world, speaking to any person I could to find my current CTO, Gadi Amit. He is a creative genius and a person that sees the opportunity in a challenge.

Spiffy: Is there anything else you would love to tell our audience?

Monica: Parents deserve help, and asking for it does not make you a bad parent. The village as our parents knew it does not exist, the village is not even digital—it is a hybrid that we must craft to support each of our individual families’ needs.

Spiffy: Thanks for speaking with me today, Monica—it’s been an honor!

Monica Plath founded Little Connected Care to solve a personal paintpoint when she found the product did not exist. She leveraged her education from the University of Washington, and executive programs at Stanford, and MIT to found Littlebird and create a true connected-care, eco-system that would enhance parent, child, and caregiver relationships. (Nominated by Charlotte Michailidis at Parenthood Ventures. First published on the Ladderworks website on November 15, 2022.)