In recent decades, families in the Western world have become more geographically distributed. Business traveling - the kind of traveling that tends to separate family members - is still a very common phenomenon and keeps making it difficult for family members to achieve and maintain a feeling of connectedness. Modern communication technologies, such as phones, Instant Messenger (IM) clients, and text messaging, improve communication, but seldom achieve the same level of connectedness and awareness that face-to-face communication does. In addition, when it comes to young children, these communication technologies may not even be an option.

Globetoddler is a mobile-tangible communication platform that aims to make remote interaction and sharing of experiences easier and more meaningful to (preschool) children and their traveling parents. The system has been designed specifically to reconcile differences in both location and time, without compromising the specific needs and traits of the individual users, and therefore consists of two vastly different technology platforms, connected by a transparent, seamless interface. On the child's side the system consists of a sensor equipped stuffed toy, combined with an interactive virtual world that aims to help make communication a more natural and fun part of the child's daily life. The parent uses a relatively simple mobile application to interact with the child. Despite its assymetric design, the Globetoddler system supports equal and symmetric interactions by giving the parent and the child access to the same set of features.