The Monja Kids were created in 1998 by a company called Hong Kong based company called Compudia. Compudia was established to research and create virtual reality and internet technologies to enable individual expression and promote on-line communication.
Akihiro Seki was the driving personality behind Compudia and working with a team of programmers and designers, he began work on the Monja Kids project. His concept was to use the Monja Kids as a means of branding the technologies; if children could use and enjoy the technology Compudia was creating, then adults could as well.
In 1998 www.monjaislands.com was started. The site allowed users to create their own islands in 2D, as well as to post pictures, chat and more. Revolutionary at the time, the site was featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and news programs. It was recognized by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The site continues to the present and has thousands of users around the world who communicate in English, two forms of Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
Additionally, there are the www.monjamail.com and http://monjakids.no-ip.info/monjakids/ websites.
The far-sighted vision of Mr. Seki also produced the Monja Kids Creative Development Kit, a collection of software tools which allow users to easily create their own on-line worlds and games. The CDK premiered in October, 2005 at the Singapore Science Center as part of the Planet Games exhibition.
The Monja Kids CDK is now establishing itself as an exciting and promising tool for creating educational games, virtual worlds, unique advertising and promotional campaigns as well as being an entertaining on and off-line hobby for children and virtual community enthusiasts everywhere.