Downtown Fresno company teaches students social-emotional intelligence

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Inside IMAGO, the educational technology company is finding new ways of reaching people through social-emotional learning.

"Today, because of the pandemic, that desire has been accelerated when it comes to the well-being of humans. I think people today, not a lot of us have been developing these skills since childhood," said Edgar Blunt, IMAGO CEO and co-founder

Blunt said there's a need to develop people to be ready for crisis and the workforce.

His company is finding interactive ways of doing that from downtown Fresno.

Several years ago, Fresno Unified signed on to introduce the concept to students in the career technical education field.

About 45% of students are enrolled in the CTE field.

"Our teachers are able to not just talk about the work, but they're able to apply true workspace lessons and talk about what it really means to be a good effective employee, somebody who wants to be prepared to step into the workforce," said Jeremy Ward, Fresno Unified's assistant superintendent of college and career readiness.

These are soft skills that can help in the future.

Recent graduate Victoria Montes said she had learned a lot from the lessons.

"It opened my eyes that you've got to learn how to deal with conflict, you've got to learn how to talk to people, communicate effectively, control your emotions, how to recognize if someone's upset, how do I deal with them. I was like, these are amazing skills," said Montes.

The program is equipping them with another set of skills they can use outside of the classroom.

Since IMAGO started in 2011, the company has grown.

In just the past year, business has gone up 100%. They're looking forward to reaching more school districts and companies around the world.