ODE

Decision skills set the wheels of fate in motion. Training decisions can take us step-by-step to where we want to be with ourselves, society, and SDGs.

GenZ and Millennials suffer along with decision-making: 1. When a decision is coming up, 2. with gathering and processing information, and 3. the moment they decide, with fear of not having considered all the determining factors. 
We found that decision-making problems are similar, except where cultures share and involve a wider family, whereas others involve fewer people. 

There is limited training in decision-making for young adults in our curriculum, expecting them to perform well with their choices in education, family, friends, relationships, drugs, sexuality, jobs, equality, democracy and many more. 
 
Our idea is to use the impact-app ODE to train decisions bottom-up in personal areas with repetition, stored for reflection and learning, from building self-determination. Fostering resilience to take responsibility for peers, society, and our planet.

226.7 decisions each day taken on food alone (Cornell University), individuals executed an estimated 35,000 remotely conscious decisions per day. 
Decision Fatigue (ODE survey #1 with 188 international participants) With 62% feel uncomfortable unsatisfied, or regret decisions taken, causing 38% that have an infinite number of decisions pending (lack of skills, uncertainty, systems noise). With the ODE.survey #2 (85 participants), 42% responded to use an estimate of 31 minutes and more for poor choices per day, and 60% use 6 to 15 minutes to postpone decisions every day, stating that Education and Travel are the main areas for poor and postponed decisions (Interviews). GenZ and Millennials make up 64% of the world's entire population. That amounts to 4.7 billion people. Emotional well-being or an increase in mental stress will influence their decision-making within their professional life as much as it does with their personal lives—costs for health treatment and bad decisions to follow.
McKinsey's research (06/21) showed that executives, on average, spend almost 40 percent of their time making decisions and believe most of that time is poorly used.
Hiring the wrong person costs roughly 1.5 annual salaries for mid-level management (ODE.interview Peter Jaksch, Head of HR, PATRIZIA Immobilien AG).

ODE - objectifying decision engine - the app offers a linear decision structure that becomes the digital mentor for safe, honest, and self-determined decision-making. 

ODE enables young individuals to make informed and well-guided decisions every day to the more important, life-changing decisions.

Ode creates a collaborative space for active and meaningful online engagement, giving users an objective framework through which they receive structured feedback that leads to better decisions.

Ode is purposeful and result-driven – users can develop a historical bank of decisions enabling them to reflect – supported by machine learning – and understand the decision made over time.

Upskilling decision competence step-by-step will take next generations to where they want to be personally, professionally, and with society globally. Interviews with Laura (16) Europe, Jannis (20) US, Chao (28) PRChina, Nadja (28) Russia/D, and Pratik (31) India and many more indicated the needs of young adults. ODE will support young individuals to take action rather than avoid them, creating value for individuals, groups and society. 

Decisions are transparent and based on objective and individual criteria (own criteria to be created) Advantage: decisions are objectively taken, not only out of pure gut feeling - but gut feeling stays part of the process as tests indicated. Once sufficient data is available, the user can inform their decision by the average decision tendencies of other users, comparing own decision with those of other people. 
Advantage: possibly grow self-assurance, “avoid reinventing the wheel”, increase satisfaction and achieve decision closure

“I made the right choice” Users can develop their own framework and understand pros and cons of a decision before approaching others. Advantage: decision process gains respect (for e.g. young people, convince parents by showing a structured thought process)

Users can involve others /peer-group in the decision-making process, without  the distraction of arguments and remaining in control.
Advantage: include other opinions in the decision-making process whilst being able to select "who" says what.

Decision-making is fun, shared and does not waste time
Advantage: "I have time for other things", “I am not overwhelmed by choice”, “I consciously rejected other options”

Stored long term perspective of decision-making to understand own decisions over a longer period
Advantage: Ability to reflect on own behaviour

Reduction of conflict and strife (e.g. purchase decisions within partnerships/ marriage)
Advantage: no more unhealthy confrontation, instead healthy discussions and  jointly agreed criteria and decisions

ODE's goal is to enable learner engagement in interaction with educators and hybrid learning/experiential environments. The digital concept is accessible in geographically distant learning environments. 
Parental support and interaction with peers and guided independent work makes training the 21st Century Life Skill transparent, witnessing the development of the learner. Technical adaptations and learning experiences through analog/hybrid, imaginative play, joint projects, and practical experiments on decisions will increase accessibility. 
Through the experience of their effectiveness, the resilience (mental health, crisis management, dealing with cyberbullying) of the young adults and the respect and responsible interaction with each other is strengthened. 

The current status is between prototype and pilot; soft-launch was executed 10.10.2020. Due to Corona travel-bans have slowed down the customer acquisition process.
Current developments confirm the understanding and use of the app, as well as its approach. Concrete implementations are taking place with the Employability Training currently defined by students and the teaching concept Consumer Decision (K12). Results are not yet available. Dronacharya College of Engineering has agreed to execute a pilot. Other Universities in Europe and the US are interested in discussing the "Employability training."

Our simple but innovative idea is to use the impact-app ODE to train decisions bottom-up in personal areas with repetition, stored for reflection and learning, increasing the timeline and influence of the decision, from building self-determination to take responsibility for peer groups and later for society. 

We do it with the tool (IOS, Android, web) that is with them, "99% of the time, except I sleep" (Interview: Thanee) to give best-fit support (everywhere and any time) to a process that can take up to several months with input along the way.

With this self-determination, we have individuals who have experienced their effectiveness and power of decisions. They will be ready to become active participants in all aspects of life, with a responsible attitude. 

There is little training in decision-making for children and young adults in our curriculum unless their parents guide them and are willing to provide the necessary space to them. We expect them to perform in many decisions for themselves and our societies. 

Societies have a strong focus on democracy. Projects come top-down, pointing fingers and demanding participation from an knowledgable point of view. Do non-voters come from other walks of life? We don't see that; our observations show that many of the "bad" decisions based on wrong criteria and prioritization are coming from all areas of society, bringing the world to the point we are at. The impact of ODE is that we enable changes bottom-up as all changes need a decision for action.

Current: 271 downloads
12 month from now: 67,000 downloads
Five years projection: 21 mill. downloads

Users: # registered
Paying User: # subscribers
Decisions: #
Polls: #
Feedbackloops: #
Blueprints: #, library
Participants: # in educator program
Distribution of educator program: # countries
Downloads: educator manuscripts
B2B2C: Customers (schools, universities...)
Invitation for change talk: governmental and non-governmental organizations
to be developed: succes rates with decisions / happiness factor
Press "education": #, quality

Fulltime: 0 - due to Corona all costs had to be limited
Part-Time: 2 (Founders), 1 Founder ("Corona Parental Leave")

The idea was created with the long term observation as lecturers, company founders, co-workers and within society. Passion, competence and reliablity are core elements that all founders have in common. Experiences in company building and failure are crucial to understand the needs and pains of starting an impact start-up. With one of our first due dilligence we got the following evaluation:

“The founding team is fully motivated and on fire for their idea. In addition to an exciting business idea, the founding team has outstanding professional experience and has already gained essential core competencies and expertise in the startup environment. We are convinced that the team will master complex challenges well and in a targeted manner. The team already has an excellent network of ambitious and committed supporters.  

This means that ODE Systems can rely on very good support - even in the event of problems.

One of the team's core competencies is its extraordinary ability to balance economic, ecological, and social goals into a stable balance. In doing so, the team demonstrates integrity, responsibility, passion, and respect for people & the environment impressively and extraordinarily..” 

CAPACURA GmbH- „Dealflow und Unternehmensbewertungen von (Impact) Startups“

We do not make a difference and follow the UN Carta: No human is judged on differences, we look for differences in minds to fight for the best.
Every team member (m/f/d) at ODE.systems can and should contribute, approach any person in the company directly, by email or phone, to solve a problem in a positive way for the company. 

No one is without fault. However, we see this as a potential for the team to build authentic trust by providing a safe space to discuss, experiment, fail and innovate.
Employees don't need explicit permission to talk about issues at all levels. It's not about casual chit-chat. It's about making sure we work ultra-fast, work well, and rise to challenges. We will not compete with other companies by size but with intelligence and agility. Every team member should feel a fundamental obligation to do this and demand it until the right thing happens.
Managers are asked to work hard to make sure they don't create silos within the company that hinders communication in any way.

We are all in the same boat, and we are the ODE.systems team.

Discussing about the strong network and open community with Lars Frølund, MIT Innovation Initiative I got thrilled about the opportunity to work along dedicated and impact driven organization.  We would love to learn and improve to make the option for young adults to learn about decision-making come true. We believe that the world can become better but do need support and strong partners to activate the systems change. That could only be achieved with synergies and shared forces.  We actually decided on criteria, such as reputation, cross-subject synergies, faculties that tackle behavioral change, variety of project, network, and impact stories.
ODE HAD A MATCH.

• Implementation/Strategy for Systems Change: Governmental / Non Governmental Organizations, such as the UN, UNCTAD, Student Bodies and Organisations Schools and Universities (MIT and beyond)
• Funding: Philanthropic Organization interested in projects for education/mental health
• Human Capital: Network to exchange and source team members, advisors and board members

Pilot partner with Schools and Universities, developing and implementing decision-making courses to start long-term study of the impact within mental health.

Governmental Organization and operational foundations in the sector of education and mental health to implement decision-making into the curriculum

Yes, we do work on decision competence that can close the gap. Our idea is to cross finance the subscriptions based on community work and therefore raise self-confidence for equitable education as the starting point for a self-determined life. 

Not 100% but, self-determination is a topic that people coming from war zones and other areas of crises, especially girls and women are in need for.

Yes, meaningful decision means by nature non-biased decision that includes the elimination of any discrimination by heart. People knowledgeable and understanding the topic of biases will fight them and hence take away those that are 

No, the current founder’s group is 33% women only. Changing with the next founding to 3/5.
Besides empowering girls and women to become self-determined was already a big success with the NIKE Girls Empowerment and could be support in all areas with decision competence/skills.

Machine Learning (AI) will be implemented with the next funding. 

Make people better decision-makers, learning from their own and those of the community (crowd knowledge)

ODE is offering upskilling within and outside the education system. 

To protect our users and provide an ethical code of conduct, we might need to implement Blockchain technology to protect data beyond the current system. 

The outcome will be self-determined unbiased, and uninfluenced decision-makers to choose their future path based on valuable criteria. 

Those empowerments can foster STEM education among kids and young adults without fear based on natural curiosity and contribute to a sustainable world. Those targeting the path/job they look for will be more stable members of society and increase their wealth with better decisions.