New Day: Mobile Skills Training

Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world, has uniquely high smartphone usage rates.

New Day is the world’s first smartphone-centric low-income professional growth platform, providing job-matching and vocational skills training.

With innovative chat-based smartphone products, we enable Myanmar's 30m low-income workforce to grow and reach their potential.

At New Day, we believe that everyone in the world – not just the wealthy and highly-educated – should be able to access available jobs information, professional training, and career growth support.

The smartphone revolution can unlock this potential.  A smartphone has more computing power than all of NASA's computers when it landed a rocket ship on the moon.  Today in Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world, 80% of its 60 million people have these transcendent devices in their pockets – unique in developing markets.

At New Day, we are harnessing this power to build job search and professional growth solutions for the blue-collar mass market.  

To do this, we are building a library of content to support vocational and professional skills development for our blue-collar workforce.  Think of it as a Coursera for the mass market, not just the 1%.

We are releasing our content over our chatbot products and Facebook page to our ~10,000 strong, rapidly-growing user base.  By using this method, we can quickly test our content to determine usefulness and engagement, we increase accessibility (no download needed), and we increase personalization (friendly chat-based interface).

Additionally, we are collaborating with employers to determine which types of training will augment their training programs to facilitate productivity improvements and career growth.

Our mission is to create a blue-collar professional growth ecosystem that not only serves as that critical first stepping-stone to getting a good job, but provides a staircase on which millions in Myanmar - and billions throughout the world - climb to reach their potential.

While 80% have smartphones, Myanmar’s 30m low-income workers still lack efficient, reliable means to find a job.

On the other hand, we’ve talked to many employers with 200+ positions to fill, willing to pay to efficiently reach these job seekers. 

Due to an obfuscated system, workers and employers are less willing to invest in one another to foster strong working relationships.  In the manufacturing sector, turnover as high as 80%-120% blocks employers from investing in worker training, inhibiting workers from staying in positions.

Through research, we found that both sides are eager to break this destructive cycle.

In 3-5 years, the majority of people in India and Bangladesh with smartphones will reach this figure.  While the potential impact in Myanmar is tremendous, it also represents a testing ground for the power of mass market, “smart” digital services.  

Launching our facebook chatbot one month ago, we have had strong traction of 2,000 active users, nearly 10,000 user reach, and paying employer customers.  It confirms that people are hungry to better their livelihoods and their family’s liveliihoods. We will implement in Myanmar, and then scale to our 3 billion person market across the world.

Our platform will empower millions of low-income Myanmar workers.  These workers are ~80% women working in the manufacturing sector. We plan to reach 16K by Year1 and 2M by Year5.  We will deploy through social media and on-the-ground marketing.

Our impact is two-fold:

• Find, start and maintain reliable employment
• Help build skills that enable income growth, upward job mobility, and lower turnover

Track chatbot and facebook usage - 30,000 reach by end of December 2017

Track live modules and customer usage - Creation, curation, and implementation of 5 core training courses/modules

Analyze customer feedback over our platform - Decreased turnover and increased earning power

To apply the power of smartphones to the mass in developing markets, we cannot copy and paste developed-market smartphone products (like apps).  Low-income people in developing markets are not using smartphones in the same way that white-collar employees in New York City does.

One trend is that low-income people in Myanmar do not download new apps.  Instead, we must reach them using alternative methods.

Our platform leverages the power of chat-based products called chatbots.  Easily connectable through Facebook and Viber, chatbots’ AI-enabled response mechanisms and user-friendly interface are more engaging and smart (effective) than any channels before it.

We landed upon chatbots as a direct result of human-centered design.  In fact, our teammembers have many years’ experience using HCD to identify needs and develop products.

Initially, we started building an app.  During iterative field testing, we found that the app was difficult to download and user-unfriendly.  Many of our customers have limited digital literacy - they just started using smartphones 6-12 months ago and required a more accessible, user-friendly product.

Chatbots have been the perfect solution.  They are accessible through Facebook, which the majority of smartphone users have, and the chat interface is easy-to-use and personal.

Our team is deploying our solution across three avenues:

• 1)Facebook: Our most successful channel has been through organic facebook usage.  We are expanding our reach by over 1,000 users per week
• 2)On-the-ground Marketing: We have posted flyers and signs in key areas of our implementation area, the Hlaingtharyar industrial zone
• 3)Partnerships: We have made key partnerships with small, local training schools to develop our training platform and disseminate it

For job seeker customers, our product is free.  All avenues, especially 1 and 3, are deeply impactful yet accessible to our customers.

We have raised nearly 30k USD, which has supported the early stages of our research, development, and launch. For our job matching, we are charging employers a placement fee, which varies depending on the position. This revenue model will allow us to be break even by end of 2018. However, it is important for our impact to continue to grow our product, achieve a critical mass and deepen our customer relationship. Funding from Solve will ensure that we are able to do this.

Engaging content: We need to prioritize testing our training services both in terms of content applicability and delivery. Evolving Economy: Myanmar’s economy is growing and changing rapidly. We must be diligent in remaining closely connected to evolving trends so that we can continue to make and offer services that are most helpful and impactful for our customers. Evolving Technology: Smartphone technology and smartphone usage will surely evolve over time. We must remain connected to these trends so that our product continues to be as user-friendly as possible.

https://www.facebook.com/MaNehThit/

https://www.nehthit.com

We are applying to Solve to tap into its incredible community. We have already appreciated the opportunity to peruse other solutions for potential opportunities to collaborate with other Solvers. We have also found the power of strong mentorship, which we have cultivated at MIT and in Myanmar. Tapping into Solve’s Mentorship base would be extremely helpful to us so that we can better learn about best practices, implementation strategy, etc. Additionally, we would like to pay it forward by providing our own knowledge and findings to support other Solvers as they develop and implement their own products and services.

Select employer/hirer partners are working with us to advise our training content. We have informal collaboration partnerships with influencers in the field such as Phandeeyar, Proximity Designs, and Opportunities Now. As part of our team is from MIT, we are also partnering with MIT resources to help develop our tech.

No direct competitors, only 3 local, non-tech players: Job Fixers, Job Agencies, and Journals