Mobile App for Scholarships and Internships

The main problem that hinders students from finding scholarships and internships is there is not a single source to find them. There are many scholarships search websites, but are not updated or have a complete listing of Native American scholarships. The problem is that all this information is unconsolidated and un-centralized into a single resource where students and easily navigate and find opportunities. The scale of this problem is huge considering the population of high school students and college students. These students, an estimated population of Native American college students of 100,000 are affected by this large vast sea of information that is not organized into a central database location.

Mobile app development for native communities has slowly been implemented for educational applications. The Center for Native American Scholarship and Internship mobile app will allow students to have a scholarships/internships information on hand. Students will be able to search by major, student part-time/full-time status, GPA requirements, due dates, etc. This solution will utilize a mobile platform to reach and connect with many students across the nation. To date there is nearly two hundred scholarships and internships directly for native students from across the nation. Students from all over the country can easily see what summer fellowships or internships are available. 

This project, when operational will reach into every tribal nation and schools across the Country. It is a unique solution that will directly assist many high school students, college students, Native American non-profit organizations, tribal universities, community colleges and main stream universities. These higher educational communities have created resources to help the next generations of leaders who are pursuing a college education and this website will further assist them. The Center for Native American Scholarship and Internships web application, will be the hub of resources that students and always uses throughout their years in college.

We have started this project because we saw the need for this resource, we continue to put forth our efforts and time into making this a reality. We are dedicated  and committed to see this work progress and continue to seek out funding.

Currently we are building a network locally and regionally with universities, non-profits, business, educators and likeminded individuals and organization who work in the higher educational sector to promote scholarships and internships. This will be an important step to grow our organization, purpose and our mobile app project. In addition to our networking efforts, we created our Facebook page to promote and market scholarships and internships. Our audience has grown in numbers and students find our resource page useful and beneficial.

Our approach to addressing the needs of native community is to hear first from professionals and students in higher educations, we hear the need for a directory system that native students can quickly find opportunities. Gathering this information about the needs only helps us to mold and create our mobile app solution. As we continue to build interest and our project gets funded, I believe we will only garner more support and input to further improve our project.

The biggest barrier we currently face is initial seed funding to get the project going. The mobile app development phase requires a cost to have it designed, programed, and created. The grant from MIT will enable us to create our first app which will get our organization known. Also, other barriers we face is getting the mobile app known to the native American public and being a MIT solve participate will help us market and get our project known to students.   

This particular issue of not have a single source of scholarship and internships directory has yet to be solve in the higher educational community. today students have to navigate on the web to find resources available to them. Creating this mobile app for scholarships has never been done before and implement in Native American communities.  A new approach is needed and this mobile app will create a one stop shop for scholarships and internship resources. I expect this app to generate a lot of interest into how mobile development can be better utilized to serve in an educational resource compacity.

My impact goal for next year is give students a mobile app resource where they and find opportunities and begin applying for them. A second impact goal is to build upon this project that will allow our organization to grow and find likeminded professional who want to join our team. in five year, out goal to is that our mobile app can be self sustaining and generate income so the mobile app can continuously be updated to reflect the current opportunities.  

There are two indicator which we will be able to measure once the project is operated. Tracking the number of downloads of our mobile app will be an indicator of our success and effectiveness. Also, we can track our Facebook page follows and like is an indicator of our student populations which we serve. knowing out audience is important and allow us to get feed back from our users. 

My theory of change is quite simple, the art of creativity creates change and brings clarity and structure. The issue and problem I am trying to solve is like a vast cloud of information mixed and scattered. As I continue to think and formulate and tailor my solution, I am essentially dissolving this cloud of noise. The art of creating my mobile app, will make it clear for students to see the big picture. These scholarships and internships has a structure to them which can be organized and delivered through the mobile app. 

The core technology that will drive my solution is mobile applications. mobile apps have been existence for at least ten years now. The popularity of them depends on their usefulness. I have yet to see mobile applications be developed for Native American communities on a scale that can help all college students across the states. I believe and came to the conclusion that Mobile app development is a frontier that has not be fully explored. This mobile app will change how student go about preparing for there college journey and allow them to have all the resources in there hands. 

I continue to find individuals who have the same passion, drive and commitment as me to build this organization and bring it to a national level.  in time it will grow into a regional non-profit group, that establishes a mission, vision and objectives. As the project develops, I believe it will attract leaders who wish to contribute and be apart of the team. 

Currently, The organization "The Center for Native American Scholarships and Internships" is still in its infancy stage. Once we have a large enough team and present in the communities. It will become a non-profit organization that serves in the educational community. We will be able to provide them with our resources and a complete directory for students. With or mobile app, we can help them navigate finding opportunities that align with their course of studies.   

Our plan is to continue to apply for starter grants that will help us get our initial project online. The mobile app will need to updated periodically which will require someone to so. This mobile app has a cost to keep it operational and needs to generate a revenue so it can sustain itself. With that in mind, its will have to charge a service fee to our users. This revenue source is what we want to fund the organization and its projects. In the long term, we can market the success of this project and apply for other grants.

Currently we have a team of two and looking for more individuals who want to be apart of this work. as we have more members we will be able to do some simple fundraising activates such as food sales to generate some seed money. our other avenue of funding is to apply for other grants. we continue to look for other grants that could fund our project and operations.