Why we built TaskBlue

TaskBlue was founded by two students from Berlin, Paul Kasten and Alexander Zakharov. It started with the phone bans more and more schools are introducing.

We don't believe bans are the answer. A ban governs the school day, but it doesn't teach kids to handle their phone themselves. After school the phone is back, with the same apps built so that you never stop. Research backs this up: in a UK study of 1,227 adolescents at 30 schools, kids at schools with phone bans used their phones no less overall and felt no better than kids at schools without one. (Source: Goodyear et al., The Lancet Regional Health Europe, 2025)

So TaskBlue makes only the distracting apps invisible, and the rest of the phone stays usable. On top comes a positive reason instead of a no: every focus hour with TaskBlue pulls real plastic out of the sea. Your child sees that their focus makes a difference and has a reason to focus without the distracting apps. Our goal is that over time kids notice how good a clear head feels and focus on their own, not just because their parents set it up.

Today TaskBlue comes in two parts: an iPhone app that makes distracting apps invisible on its own, at school for example, and the BlueTag, a small key ring for the parents, 3D-printed in Berlin from plant-based PLA and packed by hand. The BlueTag isn't an accessory, it's the key to the app. Both parts share one simple promise: every time your child focuses, they pull plastic out of the sea.