AGARU

We are tackling a big problem that affects a lot of 'little people' around the world, that is the lack of recognition for skills that are considered 'soft' and 'unmeasurable' but that are crucial to the economy. 

With this record enterprises can get better customer feedback and manage staff better; staff can have access to opportunities beyond politics, age, gender or seniority at work; customers are rewarded and benefit for their participation.  We believe this is a win-win-win and the way of the future.   Our platform will open opportunities that were simply not possible before; by having a record of skill staff can prove their talent and have a measure of feedback that doesn't exist now. By having proof of employability (vocational ability) this can open doors to loans, credit, further training or better jobs. 

3.5 Trillions of dollars a year depend on service interactions that are considered 'unmeasurable', and frontline staff of enterprises have little resources when they change careers or need verification of their talents. 700+ million people around the world work in hospitality, and the number is probably larger including the informal economy. 

Long therm vision is to bring this to developing nations, where there is no trust in governments or institutions. We will empower people to prove that they are someone and contribute in some way to the world. With a record of time, place and person we can create access to opportunities based on employment ability. Imagine giving someone without an 'official' address access to  loans, mortgages or capital for investment for SMEs. Ultimately we think that Meritocracy, not politics, should make the difference between rich and poor.

Current approaches (like LinkedIn or Tripadvisor)  only benefit the enterprises or the recruitment agencies, not the staff directly. Nobody cares what happens to the staff after they leave the company.  Talent , attitude and aptitude will be  the point of differentiation instead of the many 'isms' out there.  Our job is to help people help themselves.

Our approach is simple, based on direct customer voting.

Customers vote on any service interaction, creating a record of the quality of the customer service interaction.

We work on a web browser so that there is no need for software, nothing to download, simple to use. All we need is the place and name of the customer service / hospitality staff and the rating. 

We provide enterprises with an aggregate of the staff performance on a daily / weekly / monthly basis so that talent can be spotted, and those lagging behind trained or monitored closely for improvement.  The staff owns the data and can always opt out. We provide individual scores for the staff, aggregates for the companies. 

Our consumer contributors also receive 

We are currently using a simple database, but down the road we hope to integrate with distributed ledger applications, so that the data can be easily shareable and yet remain third party verifiable anytime, anywhere by anyone. 

We target Frontline Hospitality staff in particular, but the reach can be anyone involved in customer service interactions, or even within organizations.  Frontline staff of enterprises have little resources when they change careers or need verification of their talents.

 We are inspired by a famous researcher that lived with crack dealers in El Barrio to understand why would anyone do it. Its dangerous, pay is terrible, stressful. Turns our that they do it for one thing: Respect. Money was fine, but the respect of their peers and society is what the dealers really wanted. Isn't that what we all want?

We work closely within the business, having been in hospitality for over 20 years now. We understand well the challenges, frustrations, and similarities of hospitality work everywhere. 

Our solution  will open opportunities that were simply not possible before; by having a record of skill (vocational aptitude) staff can prove their talent and have a measure of feedback that doesn't exist now.  By having proof of employability this can open doors to loans, credit, further training or better jobs. Even more: it will give respect and dignity to hard working people everywhere.

SDG Goals  applicable:

#1 No poverty; allowing measurable merit and effort to help people help themselves
#8 Decent work and economic growth; by giving agency to staff
#9 Industry innovation and infrastructure; by creating the means for this record to exist and be shared 
#10 Reduce inequalities; by allowing talent to be recognized beyond politics at work
#11 Sustainable cities and communities; by rewarding positive contribution and effort in society #16 Peace, justice and strong institutions; by rewarding good work, empowering staff, and allowing self development of individuals, that will have in their best interest to contribute positively to society. 

Substitutes include:
+ In-house databases (silos, not transportable)
+ Certifications by institutions (rarely recognized internationally, cost $$)
+ Word of Mouth (biased, unreliable)
+ LinkedIn  (biased, hard to prove claims)
+ Government records (do not reflect vocational aptitude)
+ Resume (hard to prove claims, notoriously easy to fib)
+ Recommendations (hard to prove claims, risky)
+ Feedback from management (biased, cant see all, cannot be quantified)

LinkedIn - online resume; can be biased  www.linkedin.com
Pluggd - focused on chefs .     www.pluggd.work
marketforce -- benefits companies not employees .    www.marketforce.com

Our solution is transportable, third party vouched, based on customer votes (crowdsourced), unbiased by politics, can offer proof-of-location, simple to use, simple to implement, Appropriate Technology, de-risks hiring, offers feedback for staff,  and importantly -- quantifiable customer satisfaction (metrics). 

Thanks to distributed ledgers (like blockchain) everyone participating can have a record and proof of the claims that others have of them or with them. This could be checked regardless of any economic, social or educational barriers with the right democratic access to the platform.

Current solutions are focused on the benefits to corporations, not to the individuals or the participant customers. But without these participants being rewarded, systems cannot work efficiently, nor there is motivation to participate. 
Feedback of job performance is very hard to get as well, and crucial for improvement. If we can get better metrics we can help talent improve, and customer satisfaction improve. 

Our solution offers now staff feedback on their performance, and enterprises insights on the aggregate team performance using a simple database. Every vote received adds to a person (or team) record, with the goal that eventually we will be able to recommend staff to enterprises with confidence in their vocational aptitude as determined by their former customer votes. 

A proper setup distributed ledger (as we aim for) would automatically reward participants, be failure proof (human or mechanical), share feedback, attest to proof of location/time and yet be free(er) from politics and human bias. With this record we can give people the tools to help themselves and by having a trustworthy record, opportunities that didn't exist for lack of formal education or credentials --think credit, loans, with less risk. 

EdX online (a platform for distance learning) uses a similar scheme to issue certificates that can be verified online, tied to people's email ID: https://www.edx.org/professional-certificate

Government of Switzerland's Zug city has a similar approach to passport verification

https://consensys.net/blockchain-use-cases/government-and-the-public-sector/zug/

We are starting talks with companies like Verify.com that issue credentials and attestations, while they are still in early days, we can find a way to work. They have the 'how', we have the 'what' and 'why'. 

https://verifiable.com/use-cases/workforce

People in the Philipines have adopted this crowdsourcing approach payable in cryptocurrency to cleanup bays:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190613-a-simple-online-system-that-could-end-plastic-pollution

Our founder's background is in Anthropology. At U of Toronto he learned about a famous researcher that lived with crack dealers in El Barrio to understand why would anyone do it. Its dangerous, pay is terrible, stressful. Turns our that they do it for one thing: Respect. Money was fine, but the respect of their peers and society is what the dealers really wanted. 
And isn't it what we all want? Its universal. 'How' is the challenge.

So what if we could offer people a way to show they are someone and that they are good at something in a more meaningful and positive way? 

Combined with 20 years experience in hospitality we came to realize that the best way to help people is to help them help themselves.
One way is offering them a tangible record of their abilities, something that is considered 'intangible and unmeasurable' as far as hospitality work goes. By bringing the abstract ('soft skills') into the real (a verifiable record) we can do for staff what LinkedIn or facebook does for people elsewhere: a sense of belong, a way to demonstrate and validate their work. 
With a tangible record staff can consider themselves a professional, instead of an employee -- a major difference in agency and self esteem. 

We interviewed many people in the trade in Canada, and while the idea has had a lukewarm reception, it was vey well received in Mexico by staff and union officials. the major hurdle has been changing habits to participate, but users that are engaged have been very responsive. 

We have had zero dropouts to the platform, on over 500+ records, so that indicates to us that there is interest, if mistrust in the platform. We have increased visitors (10,000) to date and more contributors every day. With network effects this can grow on its own quite well. 

Given the novelty of the idea, and need for large sets of data for it to be a dominant player, we expect breakeven by Y5 at best. 

Currently have served over 500 staff across 9 countries 
We are aiming to serve 5,000 staff this year

We are aiming for exponential growth with a little capital influx, within 5 years we hope to have reached 100 million at least

Given the nature of our product and the lack of comparables it is very hard to estimate how many people it could potentially impact. 
We are focusing on grassroots growth, which would be also hard to predict, but the effect is hard to measure. 

Our metrics will be:
engaged (registered)  staff on platform
votes received for staff (registered or not)
number of interactions of data with third parties
number of certifications issued for staff
rewards issues to staff and participating patrons
number of contributing patrons to platform

We seek to become the reference for anyone working in hospitality and customer facing roles, wherever they may be. Ideally we would be part of everyday consumer interactions, seamlessly and with long lasting benefits for all participants. 
Over 700 million people work in hospitality, with an unknown part in the informal economy. We would love to help 'the unbankable' have a reference for work, credit worthiness and personal development all in one convenient package. 

Next year
To achieve our adoption we need change of habits of consumers, and we suspect it will be easier to introduce this broadly in developing nations, where the poor rely on traditional networks of relationships and F2F connections. Our project is not far from that, we are digitizing those interactions and processes in a way. We have to show people the advantages by championing and rewarding in some way those who are great at their job.
We think that offering those 'superstars' access and benefits above and beyond the current (nothing) and using their social media channels will help spread the use. This can transcend cultures and places, especially with the younger generation that needs to prove themselves in the workforce. 

5 years out
Our system can be replicated easily into any language, and requires minimal hardware mobile capability. Down the road we'll be able to offer access with voice or other means of ID, to simplify onbarding of the less tech savvy.

BARRIERS

Financial
Currently bootstrappable nearly indefinitely, but growth will be a very slow pace, perhaps too slow. Pilot programs on offer, but no resources to execute now. 

Technical
Need a more robust ledger solution, not a technical founder, so technical debt. 
Need to develop a dashboard solution for clients instead of emails, workable, second step. 
Transition to a distributed ledger. technical debt there. Some aftermarket solutions out there, trying for partnerships with companies in the ecosystem. 

Legal
No barriers, but IP protection would be good. Patents of budget right now. 
Will register trademark in USA and Canada, perhaps Mexico as well, given the reasonable cost. 

Cultural 
Hard to instil new habits on users, needs repetition and constant reminding. Otherwise most are onboard, contributions coming from random sources and referrals within industry. We hope the trend continues and peer pressure helps develop things.  

Market Barriers
Biggest barrier is reaching all the potential users, very broad demographic, geography and language. Having support in-market in some way, be it government or NGO's would be ideal. 

Financial
Seeking aggressively Social Impact investors, grants, loans and will try a friends and Family round again

Technical
Try to find talent in schools and referrals, difficult and slow process.
Trying for partnerships with companies in the ecosystem. 
Learning as much as possible on own, online courses and asking for help. Solve community could help here. 

Legal
Will publishing whitepaper and just using trade secrets to operate, given current status of IP law and amount of patent trolls. Anyone could try to copy us, but the biggest hurdle is mass adoption (and incentivizing participation). 

Cultural 
Referrals within industry to increase, lean on network and 'cool kids' to make it happen. 
We have nothing to lose, so we are willing to give everything to participants (hence our generous profit sharing scheme). Nobody else will do that, and that will be our difference. 

Market Barriers 
Hiring translators and minimal staff overseas, piecemeal work and putting everything online should help minimize the need for staffing beyond 5 -10 people at the most, globally. Subcontract everything else, keep things for the locals to run as they would know the market better and faster than we ever would from outside. 

Staffing : 2, founder, full time  + co-founder, casual part time

Team

Founder: 

Adrian Marquez, Anthropologist, Sommelier. 20+ years  in hospitality trade trade. 

My background is Mexican. I grew up in Mexico City.  I immigrated to Canada over 20 years ago. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. This gave me a appreciation of the value of work, and the sad reality of the lack of opportunity for most people in developing nations.  

Lifetime entrepreneur (4x) with international business experience in east Asia (Japan, Singapore) and travel experience in Japan, Russia, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, Switzerland and Mexico.  

Mr Marquez was the creative spark behind stardust@home, a very successful crowdsourcing program that helps space exploration by training crowds to use simple tools in a semi supervised environment. It has significantly reduced the time and effort needed, by magnitudes. 

Mr Marquez is also part of the founding team of Chariles Burgers, a renegade outfit that would go to become 'one of the best food and wine experiences in the world', at par with the best in the business. Part of his contribution was the initial marketing that went viral. Charles Burgers still delivers world class experiences 10 years later. 

Mr Marquez is also a graduate of Founder Institute, based out of Silicon Valley, an accelerator with a very challenging program.

Co-Founder:

Ian Kelk, Engineering and Product Manager. Computer Scientist. 13 years developing simple solutions to complex problems.
Mr Kelk is a polymath, pilot, former rock band leader, polyglot, and currently designing virtual museums. 

Currently seeking partnerships. In chats now with a local restaurant chain to implement pilot program. 

We provide enterprises with an aggregate of the staff team performance on a daily / weekly / monthly basis so that talent can be spotted, and those lagging behind trained or monitored closely for improvement. We provide a daily email with the content. 

We charge these enterprises a recurring monthly fee depending on the size of the team. 

We are pre revenue, but we are confident in the potential. Our rates start at $20/mo for small SMEs and larger as the team number increases. 

Why its needed?
There isn't currently anything comparable in the marketplace to our platfrom, but there is huge amount of money and businesses that depend on data currently not tracked or measured. 

For financial sustainability we will:

+ sell our core service to SMEs and enterprises for a recurring monthly fee
+ Minimize staffing as much as possible as long as possible
+ Applying for donations and grants to kickstart the project further
+ Raising Social Impact capital, in as many markets as possible 

our expenses are minimal and can be covered by bootstrapping nearly indefinitely 

I am applying to Solve because I think the solution we have is very unique, covers a lot of necessities and challenges easily, with an elegant solution that can benefit all of the actors participants in the ecosystem. 
I do not have the full technical or financial ability to get this project where it deserves. I have been penniless and homeless before, and I have devoted myself to make sure that never happens to hardworking people anywhere for any reason. My finances are just enough to keep me afloat now, but not enough to get the project kickstarted to get mass adoption. 
Where I need MIT expertise is in helping connect with institutions and people that understand the value of a record of vocational aptitude, and the difference that can make on people's lives around the world. If we can plug this solution into broader networks, I think it will be adopted faster and easier than me alone trying to win hearts and minds. 

The product works well enough right now, and I am getting users, but I need more reach to find the mass that will make the project valuable to buy in by enterprises.
A more robust ledger will be necessary when interacting with banks or other creditors on behalf of users, and I cant build that now
With a system where everyone can participate we can create something interesting, big and that will help potentially billions of people around the world.
With the right networks and a little funding I can do miracles, as I have done with other projects that went viral.
Finding the right staff would be great too, I cant do everything alone

More importantly, wasted talent is a moral shame. Lets help people help themselves.

Would love to partner with:

Consensys -- leaders in the field of distributed ledgers, have the expertise and personnel to help make a major impact (help develop ledger)

FOAM -- they are currently building an alternative for geolocation that doesn't depend on GPS, and yet can protect privacy (this will be needed for integrations)

James Beard foundation -- leaders of culinary and professionals on the field of hospitality to develop adoption and legitimacy 

MIT -- any branch or program that deals with Social Innovation, Social Impact with aims to developing nations help and development 

One of the most frustrating parts of starting all over again is being able to demonstrate vocational ability without local credentials or attestations. We can use our system to create a record before the person has to move countries or jobs, as the value of soft skills can transfer easily to other industries. 
We can work to develop an integration that will give refugees dignity and a new lease on life when integrating into a new society, as good hospitality skills are  welcome anywhere you may go.

With a record of employment ability, even starting from scratch in a new place, a person can quickly build up a resume that is better, simpler and more powerful than the current alternatives, opening doors for further training, raises, loans or other unimaginable perks. 

we would use the moneys to connect and create appropriate solutions to the needs of different refugee groups, depending on language requirements or cultural norms. 

Our platform celebrates  and rewards talent regardless of gender orientation. What we provide goes beyond bias, and jobs can be more accessible based on talent, not biases that may be very entrenched. By having a record, applicants will be pre-qualified for jobs, reducing onboarding times and effort for enterprises, and makes candidate selection based on talent over anything else. 
Our system will work also to help young women and girls develop a sense of value and self-worth, by making their efforts tangible, constructed at work with every vote. To have proof of positive effort and contribution to community or workplace is a very valuable tool that can change and shape for the better the efforts of any individual anywhere. 
Women have very natural talents for hospitality in general, making a substantial proportion of the workforce. Let us empower them and give them agency to have better jobs, access to opportunities or raises with proof of their talents. 

We would use the moneys to directly advertise to women and young girls to promote self reliance, recognize attitude and aptitude in the field, and reward the top performers voted in the system. 

One of the most frustrating parts of any job is being able to demonstrate vocational ability without local formal credentials or attestations. We can use our system to create a record before the person has to move countries or jobs, as the value of soft skills can transfer easily to other industries. 
We can work to develop an integration that will give staff from hospitality enterprises dignity and a new lease on life when integrating into a new workplace, as good hospitality skills are  welcome anywhere you may go. 

With a record of employment ability (vocational aptitude), even starting from scratch in a new place, a person can quickly build up a resume that is better, simpler and more powerful than the current alternatives, opening doors for further training, raises, loans or other unimaginable perks. 

We can support the development of financial literacy by showing to people the power of collecting data and having it organized somewhere somehow for you. 
Our system will explain simply the benefits to the long term of having credentials that are transportable, easy to use, easy to share (or not) as needed for as long the person is working. A rating in our system will ideally once we integrate with lenders, lead to better rates (since the person is employable) and other benefits not previewed now.