JomStudy Mobile Application

To offer quality and affordable education to all students anywhere, anytime regardless of race, religion, skin colour, etc.

What problem are you committed to solving?

I am committed to solving the issue to provide not just quality but affordable education to all students which is aligned with United Nations' SDG Goal 4, Quality education, all via a mobile application, JomStudy. I personally see how this pandemic has affected students and shifted the entire medium of teachings from physical to virtual, hence the need for proper usage of technology is crucial for students to avoid unfinished learning. 

What solution are you proposing, and what processes and technology does it use?

I have self-developed an application called JomStudy (available in Malaysia PlayStore and AppStore, have to use VPN if you are not in Malaysia). Hence, the idea is to create more apps to cover more syllabus not just in Malaysia but other countries too. The technology stack used will be flutter and firebase. 

How could your solution positively change lives if it was scaled to Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and/or Malaysia?

This solution is able to change lives as long as the household has a phone and internet connection. The student will have access to guided knowledge to help them in their studies via this app if they are unable to access physical books or physical classes due to unforeseen circumstances. 

What is the root cause(s) of the problem you are solving? 

The pandemic is the root cause of the problem. Since 2020, countries in Southeast Asia has been in constant lockdowns where most schools are not allowed to be reopened since the students are mostly under the age of 18 yo which makes them vulnerable to covid-19, also they are still yet to get vaccinated in their local countries. The constant closure of schools has led to the problem, unfinished learning which will make a dent in students' future. 

What is the scale of the problem in the communities you are working in within Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and/or Malaysia?

I will say the scale of the problem is big which will be able to impact all secondary school students within all the countries stated above. 

How many people are affected?

To give an estimation I believe it has an impact of at least 20 million secondary students combined from all countries stated above. 

Which factors contributing to the problem related to your solution? 

- Lack of a mobile application that focuses on local education syllabus in each country

- Lack of platform that provides all-in-one resources related to their local education syllabus (e.g. an app that provides notes, past-year questions, quizzes, ebooks, etc)

Who are they, and in what ways are they currently underserved?

They are mostly secondary school students that range out from age 12 to 18, depending on the country. The way from what I feel as a student that how a student feels underserved is the unfinished learning. I am a student at the moment and I know how inefficient it is to depend on online classes, when your internet is poor, you will be missing out on so many things. 

What are you doing to understand their needs, and how are you engaging them as you develop the solution?

I am thinking from their shoe, from their perspective. I am too a student right now as I type this. Besides just thinking, I have been gathering thoughts and insights from students from different countries to see what they really need, and to me, it is all about giving equal access to education to all students. Nothing speaks better than action, while I was developing JomStudy (Malaysia Edtech application), I added a form on every page in the app for all students to readily write their feedbacks on what they think about the app. Every week, I will constantly read the students' feedbacks to see how I can make this app better for their needs. 

How will the solution address their needs?

Provide an all-in-one education app that is BASED on their local syllabus, that is what will help address their needs. 

I read and found out Octava Social Innovation Challenge is seeking accessible and affordable edtech solutions focused on underserved K-12 learners that utilize evidence-based educational content informed by the science of learning and are aligned with curriculum outcomes. 

The problem is unfinished learning due to the closure of schools.

The solution is to create an all-in-one education mobile application that is BASED on each individual country's education syllabus. The app will provide content such as short and sweet revision notes, past-year questions, quizzes, ebooks and many more interactive learning exercises. It is a proven working concept as my first Edtech app in Malaysia called JomStudy went off, with currently over 70K installations without speaking any cent on advertising. 

Hence, my dimension will be:

• Improve literacy, numeracy, and social emotional learning milestones while supporting a diverse range of learning pace and styles

With the support or locally based education application, it is catered for more focus towards the local students and benefiting them directly. 

Zero Ong Yong Xun (Founder of JomStudy) currently located in Malaysia

Innovative Approach

- Short and sweet revision notes

- Quizzes

- Past-year questions

- Ebooks

*All these features inside the app

Do you expect it to change the market or enable broader positive impacts from others in this space? How?

Yes, this is because what we see in the market is only education applications that are generic. What makes this approach different is it is based on a specific locally education syllabus just to focus to cater the needs of the students who are undergoing that national education syllabus. 

Yes, I have already launched a locally based education syllabus in Malaysia. The app is called JomStudy and is available for free for students in Malaysia. 

The technology used in Ionic and Angular. However, I am currently migrating the app to flutter. Flutter has a bigger community and a brighter future in the coding world. Hence, I need to resources and funds to migrate and also create more localise education applications for other Southeast Asia Countries. 

Activities: Students download and use the application for free.

Outputs: Students are able to revise anywhere, anytime without having to bring a heavy book everywhere they go. All they have to do is take out their phone. Besides that, students who have no access to physical books can uses the app to revise. 

Short term outcomes: Helping students to revise and study everywhere they like. Instil a habit to students to study using technology, smartphones.

Long term outcomes: Better results and better learning progress for them. Learning via their smartphones will help them to gain the benefit on how to embrace technology in education. 

The number of installations and active users. 

Platform use to collect these data: PlayStore Developer Console, AppStore Connect, Google Analytics, Firebase Analytics

I am planning to migrate my existing education app from ionic to flutter to provide a better learning experience to the students, eg the splashscreen (loading) takes more than 10 seconds, by using flutter I can reduce it to just 2 seconds. 

Then, if I receive fundings, I will be able to create similar localise education applications for other countries, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and even Singapore. 

My main barrier, for now, is financing. Currently, I am working on my own as I have no extra money to hire another talent. I am hoping to be able to win the prize money here and channel the funds in getting a talent team that is experienced in flutter and expand to other countries instantly. 

Besides hiring developers,the funds will be channelled in getting in touch with local educators from all countries for us to have a better understanding of their local education syllabus to provide the most optimum learning experience. 

Currently, I am working alone but if I am able to get funding, I would like to expand by looking out for developers to help build a better backend system and app. 

Currently, I have one contract teacher who is working closely with me to prepare the education materials that will be displayed inside the app. 

I am looking to find team members who are passionate about education and have experience and knowledge regarding backend and flutter. Currently, I am working on the app individually. 

I will hold a meeting with them and share the idea with them by presenting my slides. After the meeting, I will listen to their feedback and answer any questions asked. 

As the team leader, if the idea is good to go, I will come out with a timeframe planner, which includes what needs to be done and the deadlines of certain tasks. At the same time, I will be supervising the implementation of the idea and work closely with my team to ensure we are going in the right direction. 

I am currently not partnering with any organisations at the moment. However, I did sent out proposals to my local government (Ministry of Education) to request for resources to help me develop the application but receive no replies. 

We need this partnership with Octave to expand our impact on students not just in Malaysia but to other regions too. To do so, we need financial assistance to do it. 

Currently, I am the only person working on this along with part-time passionate educators. We need this funding to invest in the technology by making it more efficient and effective to students especially in rural areas, such as coming out a way to allow students to read notes without having an internet connection. 

We hope to look for experts in the technology area especially those who have great experience in Flutter, and backend servers.

Besides that, we need also financial assistance to hire educators from each country to have a better understanding of the local education syllabus before start launching the app for the local students.