DigiSitter - the app for family-friendly companies

DigiSitter is the first app that gives companies the opportunity to help their employees balance work and family life. DigiSitter combines a mobile app for working women and their partners with a dashboard for human resources. The app allows parents to organize 24/7 childcare at one glance and one click.

Women worldwide still do the lion's share of childcare and reproductive work, which limits their opportunities in the workplace.

We empower working women by giving them an efficient digital tool to coordinate their work and childcare schedules and improved access to care options. As a result, women gain more leverage to combine their family life with a successful professional career. 

Our vision is a world where career and family are fairly shared between men and women.  Our mission is to create a digital platform that assists parents with organizing their work and child care schedule in a collaborative network. 

Katharina analysed the need for such a product as head of the BMBF - funded project "Flexship : Flexible working models for executives" in 2015/16, when interviewing some 800 executives. (see: http://www.eaf-berlin.de/filea...The findings were validated in a series of design thinking and focus group interview workshops. We have also set up an online survey: http://www.digisitter.com/take.... We will continue to use qualitative and quantitative analysis to measure impact on women regarding fair share of paid and care work obligations, stress level and career perspectives after we launch. 

By using DigiSitter, working parents can reduce the time required for childcare coordination by 30 percent! Parents have less stress, companies have less staff shortage and care providers win new satisfied customers. 

We are currently planning a six month pilot phase with large German corporations (Volkswagen and Deutsche Bahn to participate) starting in October 2017, to test our solution. Users can download the app from the app store and will receive information on the project and an access code from their employer. From 2018, we will offer subscription plans for companies, to position themselves as an attractive employer.

Track downloads in the app store - 300 users in 3 companies during pilot

ex ante and ex post interview during pilot, including tracking on whatsapp and app - users reduce time required for childcare coordination by 30 percent

track media publications and social media posts - companies perceived as attractive employers

We are the first self organizing network that helps users coordinate working hours and care by linking parents, employers and childcare providers on one single platform. In contrast to our competitors, our application is a smart, integrated multi-sided platform: you don't have to enter all the data again in a digital family planner or search extensively in babysitting platforms, because DigiSitters draws the information from your calendar and past activities, gives you recommendations and self-organizes your schedule and child care solutions - with you confirming only with a fingertip.

The idea developed when the founder Katharina worked as a consultant and daily encountered the challenge of coordinating her professional appointments with the schedule of her two children and her partner. She then discussed with other moms and confirmed her findings in a research project. As head of the BMBF - funded project "Flexship : Flexible working models for executives" 2015/16 she interviewed some 800 executives about their experiences and concerns. The findings were confirmed in a series of design thinking workshops with parents and company representatives, to develop the app according to real needs.

The app will be available for free download from the app stores (iOS and Android). Companies will pay a subscription fee, if they want to offer additional company-specific information and services to their employees.

Currently boostrapping, with seedfunding from Vodafone Accelerator for Female Empowerment FLANE. Pilot phase will be financed through sponsoring from pilot companies. Afterwards funding through subscription fees.

Openness of companies to support digital family friendly offers

Technical ability to develop product further (calendar sync, machine learning based recommendations)

https://www.facebook.com/DigiSitter/

We hope to get access to a great network of changemakers. Specifically, we are looking for tech and machine learning expertise to develop auto-recommendations, and for contacts to US companies, since we feel the US may be a great market to scale to. Funding is a future issue, too!

Our partners are Hackerbay, EAF Berlin - Diversity in Leadership and the Vodafone Accelerator FLANE. We are supported by the German Ministry for Family Affairs’ Company Network “Erfolgsfaktor Familie”. 

Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn and a few other German corporations are interested as pilot partners.

care.com

a number of family organizer apps