Silabuz

Peruvian Education Ministry came to us looking for a solution that could help low income students give their first steps in technology learning coding, for their personal development and for the potential impact they can generate in their communities and their families incomes.

We’ve developed and tested and specific program in which kids attend online activities (face to face with trainers and self paced through a virtual platform) to learn and develop coding skills. The purpose of the program for each kid is to develop an app that can solve a problem in their communities.

This project will also generate employment for 60 trainers that will be guiding the online activities. Thirty of these trainers were already trained and another 30 will be incorporated and trained for this project.

Project will be delivered and manage through our already developed and tested platform and learning method.

Spanish speaking youth face many problems to learn coding:

1. Coding languages are created and updated in English.

2. Lack of access to tech resources, learning tools and infrastructure.

3. <1% of LATAM schools teach Computer Science vs 40% of US.

4. Corona Virus crisis request kids to stay and learn from home without an existing k-12 curriculum they can follow. 

This program is in Spanish and will be implemented in partnership with Peruvian Government, that doesn't has the resources so finance the program but will coordinate and promote its implementation. See formal letter attached.

With this program we are generating 3 big impacts:

1. Low income kids will be able to learn coding generating business and employment opportunities for them right now and in the future

2. 60 trainers will be directly employed for this project. Generating a much-needed opportunity for them in these hard and challenging times.

3. The solutions kids will develop during the program will solve and generate a positive impact in their communities

We have developed a SOCIAL LEARNING NETWORK where SPANISH SPEAKING YOUTH can develop the skills they need to LEAD the global digital economy. 

We have built the platform that solves the gap for the K12 educational system:

• With mentor and training programs for learning to code. All our programs are project based learning and problem solving focused.

• Our solution is gamified to suit the way kids learn today.

• We have a modular curriculum for all ages.

• And we track user data so teachers and schools can measure the students’ performance.

The four-month program that we are delivering to the students consists on the following courses:

1. Hello World: Introduction to programming in python. Print commands, inputs, data types, Strings, Variables, Conditions, Loops.

2. Discovering commands and rules: Lists, Data validations, Complex and compound loops.

3. Building flows and program mechanics: Dictionaries, Functions.

4. Storing and Managing data: Text archive creation and use to store data, code optimization, use of external libraries.

By the end of the program, students will:

1. Develop a project using all the content learned through the program that aims to solve a community problem.

2. Create and build teams that participate in a project contest will all the participants of the program.

3. Participate in a talent fair to present the projects developed to enterprises, startups and potential recruiters. 

• 10,000 School students: from the last 3 years of highschool from a low-income background. They currently attend public schools from all over the country and are taking a program oriented to develop technical skills for the job market (in this case the tech world). We will monitor permanently their performance an feedback through the platform, evaluate them at the beginning and the end of the programs and we will run user research interviews and surveys in order to ensure they are getting the best of the program and they are developing the skills needed and to manage their future careers.

• Trainers: we are reskilling and training new schoolteachers to be able to teach coding for young students. We have designed a train the trainer’s program for them a constantly asses them on the delivery of the programs and to empower the students through mentoring, q&a solving and guidance on their projects. Digital skillful teachers will be one of the most demanded jobs in the education segment in the future and can radically boost the income of these teachers.

As the "TPrize Challengue's mission", we want to reduce the skill gap in young latin americans regarding programming and digital skills.We will train latino teenagers in their last years of highschool to become full stack developers, challenge them to develop innovation projects and connect them with tech companies for internships.  Thereby they’ll generate value for society through learning skills that will make them valuable for the job market in an increasing sector and generate income from their jobs.

We selected this stage because we already have a product and business model that has been working for several years in two different countries and have figured out what the next stage is in terms of the solution to drive greater impact and business model. In order to achieve this next phase we are looking to enter new strategic markets where we can achieve a major impact that will enable us to become a growing and sustainable company as well as one with that changes thousands of teenagers lives and connects them with the future of work.

Our solution is an online education platform for teenagers to prepare for the jobs of the future through the combination of:

A full stack coding curriculum
A web application and mobile application that allows accessibility through multiple devices and consumes content even in offline mode.
Connection with companies looking for tech talent by a project based approach that enables them to work together in build solutions for industry related problems.

Our core technology is based on a Learning Management System developed native with a tech architecture with MVC model: Vue.js 2.3, Mysql, Laravel 8.0 (PHP 7.3). It uses the core concepts of elearning (student profile, courses, live sessions, student communities). Plus it has integrations with other technologies such as Zoom, H5P, Youtube, Cloudlare, Discord, Stripe, Cloudinary and Sendgrid to execute different services. The whole platform solution is implemented in Google Cloud Services.

The MVC architecture is very popular across software development due to giving a lot of advantages in terms of fast development at great scale such as component independence, it allows to divide the work teams in front end and back end at the same time in different functions. According to the Spring analysis, a java framework that uses MVC method, reported several tech companies that use this architecture and is also validated by the number of Github repositories using this model. A recent study indicates that the applications developed under this framework in Laravel and PHP reduce the development time and effort due to the use of different libraries that integrate generic functions such as authentication, sessions, payments, etc. Many startups use this framework to develop their products integrating with frameworks like React, Angular, Vue.JS (this is the most compatible with Laravel).

References:

[1] https://stackshare.io/spring-m... 

[2] 10.1007/978-3-319-07674-4_40

Today: We have had more than 20 thousand students in 15 countries since our foundation in 2017.

In 1 year: 12 thousand paid students

In 5 years: 35 thousand paid students

To become the leading solution for teenagers in terms of learning skills to become a programmer and effectively get linked to the job market.

In order to achieve that we must:

1. Find the best growth channels for acquiring new customers into our solution.

2. Improve our technology solution to make it available, user friendly and personalized towards the learning style and method of the student (involve the use of AI).

3. Continually improve our curriculum and learning method.

4. Develop a company partner network that continually provides internship and first job opportunities for our alumni.

With that in mind, we plan to impact more than 50 thousand lives in the next five years.

Weekly and monthly revenue

• Weekly and monthly active users

• Weekly and monthly completed courses

• Monthly granted scholarships

Full time: 3

Part Time: 6

Alonso Mujica (CEO): Industrial Engineer. Education student. Entrepreneur. Passionate for technology and how it can be used for improving people’s lives, discovered computers at 3 years old. Has worked for tech companies and startups. He is fighting for more latinos to get the chance to access the technology world and access to better life opportunities through it.

Alejandra Puente (CMO): Communicator and Journalist. Content marketing, user experience and innovation specialist. She is passionate about communications, new technologies adoption and how these can be used by people to improve their lives quality. She is also a marketing, journalism and communications teacher. She is fighting to reduce gaps of access to technologies for minorities such as latinos and women.

Piero Ramos (CTO). Systems Engineer. Project manager and entrepreneur. Passionate about technology, leading multidisciplinary projects and managing product development to scale and impact thousands of lives. His motivation is for more latinos to access the opportunity of creating and developing tech product with global impact.

We also have as part of our investors and advisors a very diverse range of professionals such as Marilu Martens (NGO Director, Former Minister of Education), Piero Ghezzi (Investor, Economist, Former Minister of Production), Rafael Sanchez(Investor, E-Commerce Director for Dyson Latin America) and Victor Laguna (Software Engineer, Engineering Manager at Facebook).

We all combine diverse skills, similar motivations to impact and help millions of latinos to have better lives through the power of technology and education and make up a very strong team.

We are all 120% committed to the company's goal. Each one of us from our lives experience are passionate about education and technology and want to solve the problem of access for young latinos combining different specific motivations as well. Alonso from the goal to generate massive reach to this type of education and job opportunities, Alejandra from her commitment to reducing the gap of access and developing digital capabilities for people and Piero from his passion to develop digital scalable products that can impact thousands of lives. We are all committed to education, social impact and are quite convinced that the solution to talent gaps in Latin America will be achieved through creating and massifying access to digital solutions. Our team fights for more latinos to access better life and career opportunities through education and technology.

We believe strongly that technology needs more latinos working in products that can impact positively on a global scale (currently only 7% of STEM pros in the USA are latinos or hispanic) from Latin America to the world. Our mission as a company is to empower latino youth to get access to these opportunities, generate impact in societies by education and economic empowerment and we believe that with the right partnerships and boost in terms of technology, education and sales we can achieve that great mission.

We consider those areas keys to better solve the final user problems (parents and students). Silabuz has to optimize its sales and marketing efforts in order to become a sustainable company that can keep growing and driving social impact for its students, we need to continually improve our educational solution and curriculum and can keep improving also the technology product that supports the whole theory of change in order to be able to reach all the corners of Latin America no matter where the students are or their economic situation.

• MIT: curriculum and technology partnership. MIT is very advanced in terms of curriculum for computer science and edtech solutions, also we would like to pursue a partnership in terms of certifications for the curriculum and research for applying high technology research in our solution such as machine learning, adaptive learning, sentiment analysis algorithms.

• Telecommunication operators such as AT&T, T Mobile etc for the USA and América Móvil or Teléfonica in Latin America to be able to reach with internet coverage for all the students.

• Computer, tablet and smartphone manufacturers in order to ensure students have the right devices to attend classes and use the web/mobile platform.

• Large Enterprise, Technology Companies and Startups to strengthen our corporate network and connect the alumni with internship and first job opportunities.

• Large Enterprise Social Responsibility Funds, Charities, Foundations in order to partner up for fundraising and granting scholarships to low income students.

• School chains for business development (b2b2c partnerships).

• Ministers / Secretary of Education or Local Governments in order to partner up for distribution of scholarships to low income students and granting them access to computer labs connected to the internet.

• Venture Capital funds experts in edtech in order to partner up for investment and keep growing our solution reach and enrich our strategies from top edtech solutions that have previously been successful.