THE ANT PROJECT

The specific problem we want to address is the lack of guidance and support for high school students, college students, recent graduates, and young adults who do not enroll in traditional schooling systems to acquire the necessary skills to navigate an uncertain future.

Traditional Vietnamese education prioritizes theoretical knowledge over practical skills, making students unprepared for real-world challenges (Nguyen, 2020). Furthermore, the rapid pace of technological development and changing work patterns create skills gaps that traditional education systems struggle to address and necessitate individuals to continually update and acquire new skills throughout their careers (Nguyen, T.T.T., et al. (2020)). 

In Vietnam, admission consulting events are typically held in major cities. However, the nature of these events is such that universities primarily focus on recruiting students rather than providing guidance to high school students on choosing their majors or preparing for university life. As a result, high school students often find themselves unprepared for college, which hampers their ability to fully utilize the knowledge and skills they acquire during their college years and causes them to miss out on valuable opportunities.

At the same time, college students and recent graduates often lack the necessary skills to meet the demands of the evolving job market, leading to issues, such as unemployment, underemployment, and career dissatisfaction. According to a 2021 report from the General Statistics Office, the number of students increases each year, but the number of graduates from university institutions tends to decrease. Additionally, graduates frequently encounter difficulties in finding jobs in their desired field, even with a good university degree. Almost 50% of graduates do not work in their field of study highlights the disconnect between academic qualifications and the demands of the job. The number of unemployed workers with college or university degrees was reported to be 396,245 people according to data from the General Statistics Office in 2020. 

Although each country faces a different challenge, the core problems exist not just in Vietnam but also across Southeast Asia. Malaysian high school students also struggle to prepare for college as they do not know how to strengthen their academic skills, career readiness, and personal development (Mahmud, N., & Omar, A. K. (2020)). In Thailand, college students also face difficulties in finding a job because they do not have the soft skills needed for the workforce (Khammanee, T., & Lohaphaisan, S. (2020)).

In short, the lack of guidance and support for high school students, college students, recent graduates, and young adults to acquire necessary skills is a pressing issue in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. Therefore, there is a need for comprehensive support and guidance systems to address the skills gap and empower individuals to navigate an uncertain future in the evolving job market. This is precisely the solution we aim for in our project.

Please visit our references here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5z8yOwK4Kn0pSLGRcvC-zAdGoUatQx6z6z6OkQhoTw/edit?usp=sharing.

Our solution is an all-in-one digital platform designed to help high school students, college students, fresh graduates, and unschooled users acquire the necessary skills and knowledge for success. We provide tailored courses, sessions, and materials to support our users to grow beyond their limits.

Our user’s step-by-step journey on our platform is laid out below:

First, users will register an account and upload their CV to the system. Then, users will fill out a short survey so that the system can better understand their background and needs to suggest a personalized learning path. For example, if the user is a high school student, our digital platform provides toolkits, templates, and courses to help them learn the necessary skills for their university journey. Similarly, if a user needs to prepare for an internship application, our platform offers detailed instructions on how to create a resume or cover letter. When participating in our courses and activities, the users will not only receive feedback from the system but also from industry experts. One key feature of our platform is our mentorship programs. Users can connect with experienced professionals in their desired fields who can provide guidance, advice, and support along their learning journey. These mentors share their expertise, offer insights into the industry, and help users navigate their career paths. Additionally, we have created features to connect fellow learners, enabling them to collaborate and develop together. Users can also sign up for Wellness Services to receive one-on-one advice on concerns related to education, career, and how to balance work, study, and personal life.

In short, our platform will be built as a combination of a website and a mobile/tablet application. We recognize the strengths of both a website and a software application in handling the variety of features we offer. Additionally, AI tools will be developed to customize and tailor the user experience by analyzing users' preferences, interests, and learning patterns. This will enable the platform to provide personalized recommendations, ensuring an optimal learning experience.

At present, we focus directly and meaningfully on improving the education and career prospects of approximately 2.8 million high school students, 2.1 million college students, and 240,000 fresh graduates each year in Vietnam.

High school students in Vietnam often face a lack of comprehensive career guidance, leaving them uncertain about which paths to pursue and ill-equipped to make informed decisions about their education and future careers (Son & Kiet, 2019). Individuals who have determined their educational path, often have difficulty knowing how to prepare for college life, leading to a gap in the transition between high school and college. For college students, their challenge is that they do not how to develop skills to access opportunities suitable for their development and prepare skills suitable for the job market (Bodewig et al., 2014). In addition, fresh graduates often have difficulty finding jobs in their desired field due to a lack of relevant experience and skills (Nghi & Hien, 2020). Additionally, according to the General Statistics Office 2019 in Vietnam, over 500,000 students have graduated from high school but have not entered universities or colleges, excluding students from previous and recent years. That means individuals who enter the labor market without going to college may face a lack of skills. Therefore, they can consider our solution to foster the necessary skills.

The solution aims to impact their lives in several significant ways:

1. Skill Development: Based on the user's background, needs, and goals, our digital platform will offer courses or toolkits on skills needed in college and the workforce. Through a combination of interactive learning materials, practical exercises, and mentorship programs, individuals can develop both technical and soft skills that are in high demand.

2. Access to Experts: The Ant Project connects users with experienced professionals in their desired fields through mentorship programs. This access to experts allows individuals to receive guidance, advice, and support from those who have firsthand knowledge and experience. 

3. Community and Networking: The solution fosters a sense of community and networking among users. Through sharing and discussion circles, users from different backgrounds such as from different schools can build connections, collaborate on projects, and learn from one another's experiences.

4. Well-being Services: By addressing the underserved needs of high school students, college students, and fresh graduates, The Ant Project boosts their confidence and overall well-being. It supports them navigate the challenges and uncertainties of their educational and career paths with greater clarity and preparedness.

In the future, our project aims to making a positive impact across Southeast Asia as many countries in the region are facing the same issues with Vietnam. Our goal is to turn Southeast Asia into a region with high quality workforce, ready to tackle grand challenges.

Please visit our references here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5z8yOwK4Kn0pSLGRcvC-zAdGoUatQx6z6z6OkQhoTw/edit?usp=sharing.

After 5 years of directly and indirectly working in the education sector, Duyen Le and Thuong Nguyen came together to build this initiative. 

As a fresh graduate, Duyen understands the great pain points of navigating the world of uncertainties without guidance or support. Looking back on her experience upon graduating from high school, Duyen did not even know how to apply to colleges or what she wanted to major in. Besides The Ant Project, Duyen is currently a Project Coordinator for Google for Education (GfE) to help GfE develop their market in Vietnam. Duyen's main responsibilities are organizing government meetings and hosting activities to engage with 63 Departments of Education and Training across Vietnam, their teachers, their students, and their parents. Duyen has hosted 5 pilot programs to understand how Gfe Solutions can impact 100 teachers’ and 200 students' teaching and learning activities in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, and Dong Nai. Recently, Duyen and the GfE team successfully hosted 2 events to help launch GfE in Vietnam with over 1000 participants in total. Additionally, Duyen is a founding member of UWC Campus in Vietnam project. Duyen’s main focus is on development. Duyen has secured a $100,000 donation for the project and is currently working on building the strong foundation for UWC’s sustainable development in Vietnam. When Duyen was a college student, she worked at the Learning Support department for over 3 years as a Senior Peer Mentor. She has worked on over 100 1:1 cases, hosted over 20 group events, and developed a framework to train the new peer mentors and students at different levels. These experiences have helped Duyen reflect on the current education and workforce system and equip her with knowledge, skills, and networks to develop a solution that can serve the young generation. 

Similarly, Thuong understands that the transition period from high school to university can be challenging, requiring a quick adaptation to a new environment. With over 2 years of experience working as a Wellness Ambassador at her university, Thuong has firsthand knowledge of the challenges college students face. Specifically, first-year students often struggle to adapt to the university environment or encounter difficulties with study skills. Through collaboration with other departments, Thuong led and successfully implemented 4 campaigns with more than 150 participants each to address these issues to help students achieve their goals. balance between university and personal life. Leveraging her marketing experience gained from working at Jio Health, Earth Venture Capital, and EM-IN, she will develop marketing campaigns to increase awareness and engagement with our project among users in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. 

Therefore, Duyen and Thuong decided to embark on this journey to support young adults to survive and thrive in navigating the world. Our project name is the reason why we started. Ants are known to be community-minded creatures. They support and lift each other up. We want to be our friends' companions, pointing them in the right direction so they can help support more people in their communities. 

Currently, the ANT project is in the concept stage. We are actively shaping our core products to provide some free features to our potential users this year and launch a beta test early next year.

Becoming Solvers will be crucial to our team’s growth because we can unlock both monetary and non-monetary support and opportunities from the Solver community. As we are in our early stage of development, getting exposure to like-minded Solvers, experts, and potential members and advisors is critical for us to understand the users’ pain points, develop product-market fit, and refine our business model. We believe that the Solver network will be a supporting and resourceful community for the Ant project to learn and grow bigger and more sustainable. The lessons learnt would be extremely valuable assets for our team to deliver a solution that serves the needs of many students out there. Moreover, being a Solver can provide us with a precious branding to connect to grants, funds, experts, and professionals. We also believe that with our humbling experiences, we can help other Solvers in the community understand Vietnam and Southeast Asia better to provide market-fit solutions. In addition, as a group of 2 young women from Vietnam, our acceptance at Solve will inspire and empower future Vietnamese and Southeast Asian solutions and initiatives to apply for the Challenges and build Southeast Asia to become a stronger and healthier region.

We put our users at the center of our solutions. We do not lecture but provide support, such as information, toolkits, and skillsets, for our users to thrive. Our platform will redefine how learning support and career services are offered to students. We do not just connect users to jobs or schools. We prepare, equip, and advance our users to meet the market demand and to set the market trends.

While most of our potential buyers would most likely be universities, schools, and institutions, our targeted users are graduating high school students and college students who need guidance and navigation to survive in a world of uncertainties. 

Currently, similar products in the market have a huge focus on “being a platform" such as being a Learning Management System (LMS). Most of them do not provide knowledge and support in curating content on the platform. They are simply just platforms for institutions to manage and store their student's data. As a result, there are not many customizable features for individuals to learn and grow at their own pace. Even if the platforms offer content, most of them are very branded without putting the users at the center of the content. 

The ANT project will have a different approach by providing useful information for all users, working with organizations to provide tailored content to their students/participants, and customizing growing pathways for our users to learn and thrive with their interests and at their own pace. 

We aim to have an in-house team to continuously gather students' insights and market trends to design features, content, and materials that are helpful and useful to our users. This team will also branch out to work with our B2B customers (e.g. institutions) to curate materials suitable to the customers' target audience, making sure the users are getting the guidance needed. 

Additionally, we allow our users to customize their learning journeys and utilize our platform's features. Analytics of the users' input and search will be used to suggest the users to sharpen their skills and prepare them for the growth paths they want.

In all, the ANT project strives to be our users' companion. Whether one is struggling to thrive in school or applying for a job, the ANT project is there to offer tailored support for individuals to flourish in their own ways. 

We expect our solution to have a significant impact on the problem by following a logical framework that links our input to activities, immediate outputs, long-term outcomes, and impacts.

1. Input:

• Market research: Conduct market research to understand the market trends and what is in demand

• Human resource: Expand the team as we grow bigger to provide more support for our users

• Funding: Gather enough funding to kick off the project

• Expert consultation: Seek input from professionals in relevant fields. 

• Build prototype: Build prototype to test the features

• Pilot: Collect user feedback on usability, content relevance, and overall user experience

2. Activity: 

• Build the technical platform

• Develop personalized learning pathways based on existing frameworks and market research

• Develop content, such as interactive learning materials, practical exercises, and suitable courses for users

• Secure experts to participate in the mentorship program

• Provide Wellness Services

• Provide community activities for users to interact with each other

• Secure partners to provide our solutions to

• Promote our solution to individual users

3. Immediate Outputs:

• High school students, college students, and fresh graduates have access to personalized learning pathways tailored to their interests and goals

• Users can engage with interactive learning materials and practical exercises to develop relevant skills

• Individuals receive constructive feedback from industry experts

• Individuals connect with experienced mentors and engage in discussions with experts in their field.

• Users have easy access to sharing circles with other users and can connect with like-minded people or participate in our digital forum and offline events

4. Long-term Outcome: 

• Enhanced skill acquisition: Users develop the necessary skills that are in demand in the job market, increasing their chances of accessing opportunities suitable for their own development

• Improved application success: increase competitiveness and improve job search opportunities through being prepared with the necessary skills and receiving careful feedback on resume, cover letter, and job interview skills

• Expanded networks and connections: Engaging with mentors, experts, and peers helps individuals build professional networks, collaborate on projects, and access further opportunities

• Informed decision-making: Individuals make well-informed decisions about their education and career paths based on a deeper understanding of their interests and potential opportunities

• Enhanced self-confidence: Users gain confidence in their abilities, leading to improved self-esteem, motivation, and overall well-being

5. Impact:

• Higher education satisfaction: Students can make the most out of their education because they are prepared for it

• High-quality workforce: The workforce is equipped with the suitable knowledge and skills to contribute to their countries' or region's development

• Increased happy and empathetic leadership: Leaders learn how to manage their staff and work with empathy and happiness, allowing the organization to grow more sustainably

• Higher impact-making initiatives: As people are happy with their work and can sustain their lives, they will have more incentives to pay back to the community in various ways

• Higher life satisfaction: People are more happy, content, satisfied, and fulfilled

The Ant project strives to contribute to SDG 4 - Quality Education and 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth. Embedded in our vision statement, we want to equip young talents with knowledge and skills to thrive in both academic and industry environments. We want to start with empowering Vietnamese youth and will later on impact Southeast Asian youth. We are not just a connector but a companion who accompanies young talents from the start to the finish line.

In order to measure our impacts, we will use the following frameworks:

1. User Acquisition and Growth: Measuring the number of new customers (B2B and B2C), growth rate of user base, and conversion rates from free to premium services.

2. User Engagement and Adoption: Measuring the number of active users, user retention rates, frequency of use, and time spent on the platform per session.

3. User Satisfaction and Feedback: Measuring customer satisfaction surveys and feedback ratings

4. Impact and Reach: Measuring the number of scholarships awarded, partnerships established, and reach in underserved communities.

5. Quality and Performance: Measuring response time to user-reported issues, new features, and bugs.

6. Impact and Reach: Measuring the number of institutional partnerships, grants secured, and ecosystem engagement.

Our solution utilizes a combination of modern technologies to address the challenges. The core technologies that power our solution are:

1. Digital Platform: The platform leverages web and mobile/tablet technologies to provide easy access to learning resources, mentorship programs, and interactive tools. All learning materials and tools such as interactive modules, videos, quizzes, and practical exercises during the learning process are built on an online platform to encourage user engagement and increase skills in using digital tools digital age.

2. AI-Powered Personalization: Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms are employed to create personalized learning pathways for users. These algorithms analyze user preferences, interests, and goals to tailor the content and recommendations to each individual's specific needs.

3. Feedback Mechanisms: We ask for feedback after all the activities. User can use the feedback buttons or links within the app and website interface to submit feedback directly and easily. This encourages users to share their thoughts or report any technical issues they may encounter while using the platform.

Our team consists of Duyen Le and Thuong Nguyen. Duyen, a Summa Cum Laude graduate from Fulbright University Vietnam, draws from her role as a Founding Member at United World College Vietnam Campus and Project Coordinator at Google for Education Vietnam to spearhead impactful projects for young Southeast Asian talents. Thuong, a senior double majoring in Psychology and Vietnam Studies, leverages her experience as a Wellness Ambassador and Marketer to bring the project closer to talented youth across Southeast Asia. Our advisor is Quan Nguyen - a UPenn graduate and exit co-founder of an ed-tech startup based in South Korea.

This project only started in January 2024 but our team has had experiences working in Learning Support and Career Development for almost 5 years.

To build a welcoming and inclusive environment, it all comes back to the mindsets and the core values. As a women-led organization, diversity, equity, and inclusivity matter to us greatly. Our core values are compassion, mindfulness, happiness, and growth. We practice compassionate leadership and collaboration by assuming only good intentions and valuing our members’ emotions and feelings. Moreover, we emphasize mindfulness in our actions to achieve happiness as an organization. Because when our members are empathetic, mindfulness, and happy, we will grow together as a team as our collaboration is stronger and productivity is higher. We believe that someone's background should not be the judge of their quality of work. As we work in the area of human development, we need to nurture our team members to thrive in order for them to support our community of learners.

We have two main business strategies for our B2B and B2C clients. 

For our B2Bs, we offer access to our products and services to students at universities, high schools, and educational institutions. Depending on the amount of requested customization and features, the pricing will be adjusted accordingly to fit the target audience's needs. 

For our B2C clients, we offer a range of free fundamental services but would charge for premium ones. Our goal is to design the finest quality products, both fundamental and premium versions, so we can attract customers to purchase our memberships.

As for organizations that support underserved students or individuals who cannot afford our solutions, we offer scholarships and partnerships to provide equitable opportunities to users who need us. Our development team will continuously work to seize partnerships with foundations and secure funding from grants and funds to make sure all potential users who need us can reach us. 

While our solution can be scaled up very easily, we will prioritize sustainable growth. After carefully analyzing our capacities, we will set appropriate growth rates and targets for each year, ensuring that we will always provide the best solutions to our users.

With our B2B and B2C business strategies, we believe that our revenue streams can cover our costs in the future. We will provide our products and services based on a subscription model and will strive to deliver the best solutions to attract more users to subscribe to us. Additionally, we will work with funds, grants, and organizations to receive donations or collaborate on joint partnerships to provide our solutions to underserved users who might not have enough resources to access our platform.

Besides the ANT project, our team has worked on another solution that designs educational games for children to develop their social and emotional skills. We have successfully raised $4,000 USD in total for that project. The donation came from Temasek (Singapore-based) and IDP (Vietnam-based). 

As MIT Solve is the first challenge that we apply to, we believe that the Solver Community will support us greatly in assessing our business model and evaluating our financial sustainability plan.