Global Virtual Simulated Classroom with Local Impact

Innovating a global virtual simulated classroom where international talent teaches STEM and life skills to underprivileged students in Southeast Asia.

Knowledge of life skills like technology, science, accountancy, English, and current events is a limited but valuable commodity, especially in Southeast Asian school systems. As I've learned through my work in human rights in the region, this creates cyclical problems where children face poverty, hardships, and often conflict for generation after generation.

The solution we're proposing is building a virtual classroom. The classroom will appear similar to an in-person school building in Southeast Asia so that students feel comfortable. "Rooms" will have teachers with pre-recorded videos, libraries with open-source resources, live mentors from around the world, and special events. Students can "walk around" these rooms to access this information and speak with other students. 

This classroom will operate on both mobile and computers, and will involve a simplistic layout that's both effective, but also able to be load on slower internet connections. In addition, since students will have different user accounts, multiple students can log on from the same device. 

Our solution will positively change lives by providing underprivileged students a more global education similar to the education that wealthier students in Southeast Asia have access to, which will enable them to access better economic opportunities. We plan to first develop the technology and then deploy it in Philippines and Malaysia, before expanding throughout the region. Our deployment will ensure equal access for female and LGBTQ+ students.

I attended a public school in Asia for a few months as a kid where the school didn't have electricity or filtered water, and we were expected to help with cleaning, organization, and teaching younger children. Resources were limited, so teachers and the school system had to get innovative. And in the meager time we did actually study, the subject matters were irrelevant to probable career pathways.

With this project, the specific problem we will be fixing is the lack of educational content that is critical for economic success for students upon graduation including technology, finance, and English. We have selected these topics because research shows that having skills in these fields contribute to the largest jumps in salaries and job prospects. 

In addition, we will begin working with two communities in our target countries but after our initial launch, we will extend throughout those countries and the region. We have chosen Philippines and Malaysia not only because of our existing connections, but also because these countries have substantial English-speaking populations.

In total, we expect thousands of children to access our classroom and benefit from its resources within these countries, followed by millions of children in Southeast Asia.

We are focusing on children in high schools (ages 14-18) because these children are more independent at finding opportunities, managing their own education based on free support, and are ready to find pathways to career opportunities. We will especially focus on underprivileged children in city/suburban areas as these areas have the baseline infrastructure necessary for a technology solution with the provided funding. 

To understand the needs of these children, we are conducting a open-answer survey. In addition, we will provide forums for feedback at a regular basis as well as during key moments in our project. For example, we always test the UI/UX and the usability of our proposed software before deployment.

Our solution will address their needs by providing them with free access to skills-building that is critical to their careers as well as an international repository of knowledge which will enable them for job readiness on an international scale.

Our solution will improve equitability in access to skill-building courses for underprivileged children by using technology to reduce poverty across the board. Our English classes improve literacy in children while our provision of free mentors improves social learning and career development. The primary focus of our solution is STEM and 21st century skills: free courses/libraries compiled using international expertise and the 21st century mechanism of a simulated classroom. This solution supports schools and educators by providing free courses and resources for teachers to use for assistance, while equipping parents and teachers to engage through our software with students, thereby improving their own digital literacy.

We have a strong alignment with Octava's vision. First, our innovative idea to create a simulated classroom (think Sim City!) where students can "walk around" and interact will allow students to engage internationally in a way that will be invaluable to their job readiness. Second, our ability to engage an international mentorship and teacher cohort to provide these lessons will provide knowledge in a retainable format for students to access over a long-period of time, creating a solution with long-lasting impacts. Third, due to prior research we've done in the region, we have created innovative models to lower child labor rates which we will deploy as part of this project - in particular, through building support systems for children, we will ensure that children are staying in education and accessing our technology solution for longer.

Isvari Maranwe, President, Dweebs Global

After a year of living online or in lockdown, we all need human interaction - not only to feel connected but also build our social emotional abilities. Our solution allows students to gain access to all the benefits of a virtual, international world without the downside of social exclusion.

Our proposed software stems from research showing that youth are more likely to interact with technology they feel comfortable with. By creating a virtual classroom where students can "walk" around in a simulated environment while talking to others, and ensuring that the classroom reflects local structures, we'll be able to provide students with a virtual world that they feel at home in.

Meanwhile, we also plan to leverage an international cohort of STEM professionals, TEFL-certified teachers, and more to create quality content in the form of videos, live interactions, and open-source resources. The live interactions are especially key as they will enable students to not only talk to mentors that are specially chosen for them, but also to one another.

We expect this type of classroom to drastically change the market. While previous apps have used simulations for learning, the idea of creating a virtual simulated school environment and using it for wide-scale education is first-of-its-kind.

As an international organization that provides free career development and mental health support, Dweebs Global already has provided mentorship to people in the region and around the globe to improve their career pathways, help with trainings, and more. We have used our mentorship platform online to connect students with people to help with English, STEM, and other job readiness skills. We have helped thousands of people in the past year alone, with a cadre of over 800 mentors.

For this grant, we will use the support provided to enhance our existing mentorship service through our innovative software idea. We already know that our virtual mentorship model is successful - we have high success rates of helping our mentees secure jobs, overcome depression, and choose a career pathway that meets their needs. We are excited to extend our work in Southeast Asia.

Our existing technology involves a mentor-matching platform where we pair students to mentors who can best provide them the necessary support. We analyze the mentee's request and find the mentor who's background/training is the best fit.

Our proposed technology builds on this innovative system by adding an easier user interaction methodology using a simulated classroom environment. The technology will be developed in a few phases:

1) Conceptualization: We have drafted a specs document which we will test with locals to understand feedback on the proposed functions. We have already conducted research on children and economics to study our target audience.

2) UI/UX Design: We will design the app and website to include a virtual environment reflective of local educational environments. We will test the UI/UX and use a reiterative process to ensure its usability.

3) Development: We will develop the app, likely in Flutter so that it is cross-functional on Android and Apple. We will develop the website using a combination of PhP, Javascript, and WordPress (HTML/CSS elements).

4) Testing/Small-Scale Deployment: We will test the app on a limited amount of users to fix any bugs/features.

5) Full Deployment: We will deploy the app throughout the entire region, first starting with our listed target areas.

The core technology will involve rooms in a school where children can walk to different classes, visit the library, meet with one another, and talk to their mentor. The simulated experience will enhance Dweebs' existing mentorship work.

Earlier this year, our on-the-ground team in Bangladesh visited slums in Dhaka, asking parents of children involved in child labor about the value of education. Unsurprisingly, parents desperately understood the importance of education for their children to build better lives. More surprisingly, parents were equally interested in female and male children attending school.

Our technology derives from our on-the-ground studies, a strong understanding of policy/programmatic development, and research suggesting the success of our methodologies. Because we have undertaken an evidence-backed approach, the details of our solution each consider factors about the environment. For example, many children must work to support their families immediately after school--and therefore having a technology solution that doesn't require them to be active at a certain time will prove more effective.

The solutions we are proposing depends on a combined approach, each part of which has been used globally. Our resources and trainings model can be found across universities in the U.S. and Europe due to teachers using Canvas or Moodle to assign materials. Meanwhile, the educational simulation model has been used to teach students through a fun experience. For example, a handful of apps on historical interactions exist that teach players about actual events. Our solution builds on the successes of these apps by combining these two models into an innovative new approach.

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We are using a few different metrics:

1) Regular surveys: we will regularly survey our target audience to understand who is using our solution, what benefits they're receiving, and what feedback they have.

2) Interviews: we will interview parents, teachers, and other stakeholders to gain a comprehensive understanding of the situations.

3) Quarterly benchmarks: we will aim to meet our quarterly benchmarks for our solution.

If someone had told me one year ago that I'd be leading an international nonprofit that operates in over 35 countries, I'd have been surprised. We have grown by thousands of people served in one year and that is why I am confident that we can do something similar with this project.

In the first year, we will launch our solution. By the third year, we will aim to have a steady flow of users, companies partnering with us, and a larger target population in Southeast Asia. By the fifth year, we will aim to extend our work beyond the Southeast Asian region to support our mentorship initiatives globally.

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Funding:

We would appreciate funding to be able to pay the developers and designers to promptly and professionally turn around the app. We plan to raise revenue once we have the app on the store. In addition, we will utilize our resources and network in the Bay Area, including Southeast Asia diaspora communities, and in Washington, D.C., to connect with people who can potentially provide funding.

Market entry:

Although we have strong connections with bureaucracies, our connections with traditional media partnerships are a bit weak. We would appreciate help with media coverage. We already have a full marketing and publicity team. The news coverage and social media presence we can gain through advertising will allow us to spread much more quickly and inform more Southeast Asian families about our free services.

As an attorney with experience across the federal government and the private sector, I have learned to view every problem as something that has a solution. There is no issue that can't be resolved if we come together and design innovative pathways for change.

We, Dweebs Global, are a nonprofit movement dedicated to changing the world. In May 2020, as the world went into lockdown, a few of us decided that we needed to do something to help out youth impacted by the critical changes. Our response was simple yet innovative--building an online platform where youth could connect to mentors around the world for free.

From a handful of driven people passionate to change the world, we've since grown into a movement of over 800 mentors and volunteers from around the world who are serving those in need through targeted career guidance and skills development.

The solutions team for this project will have the following key workers:

- Management: 1.5 full-time project managers 

- Tech: 5+ programmers, 2-3 UI/UX designers, 1 A/B tester

- Marketing and partnerships: 1-2 specialists

- On-the-ground leadership: 2 from each target country

Our team is a highly motivated group of experienced professionals from around the globe. We will leverage the following expertise:

Experience in Education Systems: 

- Teaching English as a Foreign Language

- Working with underprivileged students in school systems

- Working with youth across language barriers

- Teaching both secondary and post-secondary education

Experience in Technology:

- Experienced UI/UX designers

- Multi-skilled programming talent across necessary programming languages

- Solid understanding of technology work flows

Experience in Impact Creation:

- Experience in planning theories of change

- Experience in conducting on-the-ground surveys to understand audience

- Experience in survey data analysis including quantitative methods

Experience in Product Development:

- Skilled leadership with years of experience in the government, Fortune 500s and more

- Educational background from Stanford, Georgetown, UC Berkeley

- Experience raising SEED funding and in public relations

Experience in Southeast Asia:

- Experience working on policy in Southeast Asia across ASEAN countries

- Volunteers from the region

In addition, we are very representative of those we serve. Our organization is majority minority, queer, and female-led. We have members from every continent (with the exception of Antarctica) and already have a presence in Southeast Asia. 

Dweebs Global itself is an example of Isvari's ability to manage a new idea. She was one of the first three founders, taking Dweebs from an idea to a project to an organization and movement. In a year and a half, we've helped thousands of people. 

Since the beginning, Isvari was first doing the work to advise mentees directly, then personally picking mentors to delegate requests to, then managing several of our international teams. She is absolutely capable of creating a platform for mentorship and implementing an idea, and has already done it.

We have partnered with several organizations that fall broadly in the following categories:

Technical support:

- We receive support from various large tech companies to streamline our work from graphics design to marketing, including Google, Salesforce, and Canva.

Educational partnerships:

- We partner with schools and universities around the world to connect with students through seminars and mentorships. Some event highlights include providing over 700 underprivileged children in high school with targeted career insights and featuring prominent speakers like a Supreme Court fellow, ACLU lawyer, and more. 

Local partnerships:

- We have also partnered with small business owners around the globe to provide career insights to students. For example, in Nigeria, we partnered with someone who provides Excel trainings for professionals to enable two scholarships for motivated students at a university we were serving.

- We partner with on-the-ground nonprofits to better tailor our work, such as by working to train high school students to tutor others in exchange for specialized internships and working with queer organizations in India.

While the Challenge's funding will critically help us meet our needs for our solution, we are also looking forward to working with the Challenge team as partners in our quest to improve educational access in Southeast Asia. We are especially excited to meet with coaches and mentors, particularly those with experience in the region, to guide our strategic initiatives. In addition, we look forward to the Challenge's support with developing our monitoring and evaluation to better track our progress and improve our proposed solution through continuously reiterating and augmenting our services.

The primary barrier that the Octava challenge will help us overcome is our critical need for funding to develop our proposed technology solution. In addition, Octava's connections will help us immediately launch into communities and will allow us to distinguish which communities that we have ties to might be better locations to first launch our solution.

We believe that we are well-placed for this challenge because of our team's prior experiences -- we are already well-versed in educational support in a virtual environment and have sustained methods to overcome hurdles due to the pandemic and internet connectivity issues. In addition, we believe that the diversity of our team will enable us to add to the Challenge and subsequently to your alumni cohort.

While we are confident in our ability to develop our technology solution due to our prior experience with application and website development, we would appreciate support in financing and public relations.

For financing, we are looking for warm introductions to donors, help strategizing donor-fundraising, and warm introductions to companies to join our advertisement program so that we can more readily build our self-sustainable revenue stream.

For public relations, we looking for support through connections to local media and communities to raise awareness and assist our experienced public relations team.

We are confident we will be able to grow with your support in these areas and hope to work with you through this challenge.