Education Team 7: UNITES

Team

Rachelle McCoy (CEO): Marketing and Public Relations Purdue University ‘23

Madeline Neely (CMO): Statistics, Computer Science, and Spanish Butler University ‘23

Joseph Moreau (CTO): Cyber Security and Entrepreneurship Ivy Tech Community College ‘21

Michel’le Green (Customer Experience): Software Development Ivy Tech Community College ‘22

2 Advisors: Megan Nordwig (Project Manager, Clear Object) | Rik Sansone (User Experience Designer, Delta Faucet)

Problem

COVID-19 caused many challenges within the education system, resulting in students falling months behind in their education. One main challenge in the online learning environment is communication. Specifically communication with parents and students. Some students have experienced trauma such as parental neglect or abuse, living in impoverished homes, bullying and violence, housing and food insecurity.

Solution

UNITES is a unique learning management system that connects all key players in the educational process from teachers and counselors to students and parents. Our platform's key features are the chat and Q&A. The chat feature solves the problem of miscommunication, lost emails, and language barriers. Teachers are able to easily communicate with parents, students are able to connect with one another and build relationships, and students are able to easily ask questions or seek help from anyone they need whether that be their teacher or a counselor.

Market Size

We have conducted around 5 interviews with a range of teachers but also counselors who will be the main users of the platform but we will also conduct testing for the students and parents in the future to also include their input to better help UNITES. Through our research, we have found that we will have a serviceable obtainable market of $2 million dollars with a growing rate of 14% per year since the use of technology in the school systems is at an all-time rise.

Competition

Our main competitors are: Blackboard, Brightspace, and Canvas. The main issues that consumers have faced with these three main competitors are customer service and accessibility but with UNITES we have listened and looked at their issues to better help the platform. We have designed UNITES to be accessible for every single student, teacher, and parent no matter the language they may speak or the disability that they may have.

Business Model

Our product will be sold to school districts in our local areas of Indiana for a discounted price to grasp interest but also testers for real-life data. In the future, we will roll-out a workplace (non-school organizations) UNITES platform because we do believe that workplace learning management tools are vital to a work places’ environment. We have made it a mission to make UNITES accessible through web browsers but also mobile (hand-held devices) since 85% of users may access through phone.

Marketing and Sales

Our three main goals through our marketing and sales is to create brand awareness, interest, and then take action. In organic and paid marketing channels we will use educational influencers through social media platforms to get our name out into the world. We will also utilize email marketing campaigns to retarget interested audiences that may have signed up through our education giveaway. Interest will also be used through our beta testing as well.

Progress to Date

June 2021 - Market Research and Interviews to gain customer insights July 2021 - Completion of prototype and development of the business plan Future Milestones August 2021- Build MVP, hire a UX Designer, a web developer, and secure 15 pilot users December 2021- Start Version 1, interview pilot users, and bring on a technical advisor March 2021- Test Version 1, bring on a sales and marketing advisor and secure 30 Beta testers May 2021- Launch Version 1, hire a CFO and secure 10 school districts

Built With

• figma