Prodigy Uni-on | Helping university students get money by teaching extracurricular activities to students.

What is the problem you found?

The problem statement that we developed was that foreign and university students need a source of income as they need more money to buy food and pay off loans. We also identified the problem that many students are losing their co-curricular activities as well as tuition.

What is your opportunity?

How might we help university students survive this pandemic and gain a source of income as well as help the students who have lost their co-curricular activities due to COVID19?

Who is your audience?

Our target audience is university or foreign students who have lost their source of income and are struggling to get by as well as younger students who have lost their co-curricular activities due to this international pandemic.

What Is Your Solution?

After discussing the various solutions the members in our group unanimously voted for the fifth solution which was an app which foreign/university students sign up for, where they teach others extracurricular skills. Eg. Music and sport. We liked this idea because it is doable and has the potential to be extremely effective. Another good thing is that it is creative and is a new twist thing in. After further discussion, we clarified that opportunities such as music, art, drama, sports, languages and tuition, even for Y12 exams, will be available. We discussed this idea with Pranav (Kiran’s brother). He said that it was a good idea and had great potential but for it to be effective we would have to increase the awareness of the app if it is made. This made us think about advertising. We also discussed this idea with Prashan. He said this was good and if in place could help him, as well as many others, taking their end of year exams.

Benefits:

There are many benefits available through the app.

Health – because this is an app which is driven by interaction through video and audio calls there is no need for physical interaction. This helps social distancing and prevents the spread of Coronavirus.

Income – As now many businesses are closing down, many university/foreign students are losing jobs. Through this app students now can earn an income to help them financially.

Time management – With the app giving the opportunity, during and even after the Coronavirus, to do online classes. The transport time gets save which then can be converted into other productive activities.

It is also a great opportunity for students as it is also a spectacular way for kids who want to learn extracurricular activities or academics. When a VCE student contacts a university or foreign student, they can give the students learning a bit more of an insight into what the exam may contain and help them focus on getting that specific course.

Effectiveness:

The Prodigy Uni-on app is extremely effective as it does not rely on there being Coronavirus or not.

The app can be used after the Coronavirus passes as an online method for kids to learn. This can help parents not travel great distances and have time to do other things. This also is a great benefit because after several conversations, we found that when a student is learning from a teacher the teacher may run into problems such as moving houses or even to another country. This may stop the student from learning as they either cannot go or do not have enough time to do it all. But since the app is tech-based the student can still learn from their teacher wherever they are.

Year 12 Exams:

One extreme benefit about the app for year 12 students is that they are learning from people who are fresh of the subject. This can help year 12 students trying to learn in some countries without tuition or teachers. Through the app, the university students can prepare their pupils for what is coming on the exam as they had just done it. They can also relate to the students as they also went through that path very recently. This can be a huge encouragement to the students learning as they get back on their feet with confidence.

This could also be a website due to the fact that then it would be readily available on all platforms. 

 

Support Required

Connections

Connections would be essential to turning our project into a successful platform for university, primary and secondary students to gain goods or services which could turn their lives around.

National Embassy -We would notify the national embassies of countries telling them about the app and asking them to tell their country university or foreign students to get it. This would be helpful as they have great international reach. However, without strong connections, this communication and possible assistance would not even happen.

Universities  - We would also notify the Universities about the app and encourage them to encourage their students to get it. Universities would most likely know about the financial situation of their students and would be able to help those in need.

Social media – As social media is a popular way of getting messages around the globe, we would post a picture of the app and encourage people to get it. We would also look for apps such as TikTok which can encourage people through videos about the app to get it as well.

Funding

We would need funding to enlarged the app, as well as hire professionals to actually code it. The funds would help establish a secure server which would help those who need it. Advertising would also take up a significant amount of money. Without funding our app would not grow and therefore would not be available to the public. If the app grew in popularity it would become self sufficient due to the fact that a minuscule 1% of all fees would be directed to the continuous development and sustainment of the app.

We would need to direct some of the funds to host the website on a cloud. Eg. Amazon Cloud or Microsoft Azure Cloud Storage.

Development

Currently our pitch is just an idea. We would need help with development as an immense amount of coding will be required. Although we may have some level of skill in this area, creating a secure international service is definitely beyond our ability and professional coders would be required. We would have to add security and privacy features which would take a lot of coding. We would also add multiple language choices which would take additional coding but would pay off with the increased amount of people that would be able to use the app.