Intractable

Smartphones are a key gateway to the digital world for a large number of new workers in today’s digital workforce. 

However, for first-time users and beginner users, there is a steep learning curve to using smartphones.

Our software product offers a personalized learning system that imparts smartphone usage skills, and advances broader digital literacy. It is designed for users of all skill levels, and is especially easy to use by beginners.

Smartphones are an indispensable productivity tool for an increasing number of users in their employment activities. By strengthening their smartphone skills and digital literacy, users can enhance their digital capabilities and gain access to a wider range of employment possibilities.

In various emerging economies, smartphones are the most common type of mobile devices used for access to the Internet and connected digital world (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/03/07/use-of-smartphones-and-social-media-is-common-across-most-emerging-economies/). 

Although device affordability and access continues to increase, there are barriers of skills and attitudes in the adoption and usage of Internet and digital technologies. For example, a recent GSMA Mobile for Development report indicates the lack of digital skills as one of the top global barriers to Internet adoption (https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/resources/achieving-mobile-enabled-digital-inclusion-in-bangladesh/).

The complex interplay of skills gap and prevailing attitudes contributes to these barriers, which significantly affect workers in emerging markets in using digital technology to support their livelihood and economic wellbeing.

We are developing an educational software application for Android smartphones. 

The application consists of a games-based learning system that trains users in smartphone usage and advances the digital literacy levels in user communities.

The games-based mobile app presents an approachable and friendly learning solution for first-time smartphone users, while the game world offers a rich context for problem-based learning.

The learning system is personalized, adaptive, designed with evidence-based principles, and suitable for users of all skill levels.

With a personalized learning system, users will first completing basic training in smartphone skills and digital wellbeing, and then choose learning plans about various topics related to smartphones and digital technology.

Our product is designed for smartphone users of all skill levels, with emphasis on design for first-time smartphone users.

We are particularly interested in serving first-time users in developing countries like India. The vast majority of these users do not have access to formal training solutions, and they often acquire their digital skills and usage habits through peer-based informal learning. 

We plan to work with end users from various user communities, and obtain their direct feedback in order to understand their training needs. We are building partnerships with organizations to deploy our product with their community workers and target groups.

In addition, we are incorporating design elements and learning content into the product to address cultural barriers and attitudes towards technology, as well as concerns about online wellbeing and safety in relation to potential harms like screen addiction, online fraud, and spread of disinformation.

We believe our solution is strongly aligned with the challenge, as it addresses the training needs of users who have access to smartphones, and yet lack the digital skills to fully exploit mobile technology in their livelihood and professional occupations. Our solution is accessible to beginner users, and we are particularly interested in serving users in emerging economies with demographics that have a large proportion of beginner users, who can benefit substantially by adopting mobile technology for their economic development.

Our mobile application is available as a free download in the Google Play store for Android phones. We have released initial versions of the application, and are working on expanding the features and learning content in upcoming releases.

Our innovative educational application offers a systematic games-based learning solution that is deeply personalized, approachable and accessible, and widely available.

The mobile application’s accessibility and wide availability are significant advantages over formal training approaches, and are key factors that influence the scalability of our solution.

With a systematic games-based training system, our solution delivers higher levels of learning effectiveness and consistency, compared to peer-based informal training.

Additionally, the product will benefit our users in areas beyond their professional occupations by empowering them with digital skills, with which they can leverage mobile technology for productivity, communication, education, and health. The increased skill levels can be potentially beneficial for other organizations that are serving our user communities.

Our learning solution is an Android mobile application that can be downloaded for free from popular Android app distribution platforms.

The software application consists of a games-based learning system. The development of learning functionality is based on evidence-led principles of instructional design.

There are several popular games-based learning applications that are widely available for Android smartphones, especially in areas like language learning and brain training exercises. Fitness training apps are a related category in terms of their transformational impact, and they include gamification, game elements, and game content.

Games-based learning is an area of active research: https://mitpress-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/books/handbook-game-based-learning

As first-time smartphone users begin engaging with the digital world, they are likely to be exposed to harmful content and activity, and online harms in the connected world.

Examples of risks:

• Screen addiction and online gambling addiction,
• Online fraud that can cause financial losses, like phishing,
• Sharing of disinformation and fake news.

To address these risks, we are adding training content in our product as part of a prominent Digital Wellbeing skill set, which will help users to build risk awareness and develop skills to protect themselves from these harms.

We have introduced an initial release of our product in select regions, and we expect to serve the vast majority of Android smartphone users in these regions. Over the course of the year, we will add localization and expand into additional regions.

In terms of user base growth, we expect to start with an initial user base, and scale up in subsequent releases by several factors as we continue building product functionality and expanding into new regions.

One of our primary goals is to enable access to digital technology by addressing the digital skills barrier. We believe our approach of app-based training is relevant and applicable to a large proportion of smartphone users, including first-time users and beginners, and hence our solution has the potential to benefit several millions of users world-wide.

A key indicator is the size of user base, which provides information about the number of users that are engaged in learning digital skills. 

Additionally, we can measure the learning outcomes at a finer level in terms of learning areas by using near real-time software metrics.

4 (including full-time and part-time)

Our team is committed to building innovative software products that empower people through technology.

Abhijit, who is our CEO and Founder, is a software technologist with over 15 years of industry experience. Before launching Intractable, Abhijit worked at Apple, Inc in USA, and he has previously worked at early-stage startups as well as multinational corporations in USA and India.

We believe that to build an effective training product, it is critical to analyze user feedback and incorporate it in product development iterations. We plan to obtain direct feedback from our end users and partner organizations through user interviews, as well as study user behavior through software analytics in order to continuously refine the product.

We believe that diversity is essential for innovation, and are committed to building a diverse team where everyone is valued for being who they are.

We are seeking partnerships with organizations to study product adoption with end users (for example, community field workers), and would benefit greatly with the higher visibility from this challenge.

With our partnership activities, we hope to collect data about actual usage scenarios of our product, which would influence subsequent iterations leading to improved product functionality.

Our product is available as a free mobile download in India.

To study product usage and impact, we plan to collect data from end users with software metrics (taking privacy concerns into account), as well as direct feedback in user interviews. We would benefit from partnerships particularly in identifying users and setting up interviews. 

We are keen on working with partner organizations that need digital training for their users and community members. For example, organizations with community workers and end users that rely on smartphones and other digital technology for their core operations, in areas like health, education initiatives, and microfinance. We would assist with the training needs of partner organizations by deploying our product with their user community, and providing relevant technical assistance.

We are also seeking academic partnerships for guidance in designing experiments and research studies for large user sets, in order to understand the effectiveness of our learning system at scale.