Youth, Skills, & the Workforce of the Future
Ideakidz, Design Thinking and Innovation Challenges for kids
By ideakidz
Our solution's stage of development:
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Our solution:
Teaching Design Thinking and promoting entrepreneurship to kids in any school in order to participate in real challenges launched in a free and easy to use open innovation digital platform.
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Our pitch:
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The problem:
In México and Latin América, public schools are teaching an outdated and incomplete set of skills to primary and secondary students.
Reading, writing and basic math are the same foundational skills I learned 40 years ago, but they are no longer enough to secure being part of the workforce of the future.
Worse still, with an average schooling in the country of 8 years, many young people drop out of school without the minimum skills to thrive in the labor market, let alone those needed to start a business, destined to a low-wage, repetitive, routine and sometimes dangerous work.
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Why our solution will solve the problem:
I use and teach design thinking for innovation and creative problem solving , very often I hear the expression: “It would have been great to learn this skills a long time ago”
It would be game changing to give the students the opportunity to learn a easy to use human centered process to create new things or solve problems and to live the experience of transform their ideas into prototypes and then into real solutions, participating in challenges at their schools, communities and countries, giving them the chance to experience the joy of perform creative work, instead of repetitive tasks.
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Our target outcomes:
Ideakidz is a program aimed to teach Design Thinking to students in public schools, allowing them to use this creative process to create solutions to participate in innovation challenges created by schools or other organizations in our digital platform
Ideakidz will promote qualities like empathy, creativity, innovation and collaboration , the critical use of ideas and abstractions, project based collaboration and the discipline and organization to develop a solution.
Ideakidz is based around a free digital platform where as member you can download workshops for students, guides for teachers, plans for build low cost furniture and design, create and launch challenges.
How we will measure our progress:
The populations we will benefit initially:
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The regions we will benefit initially:
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The technologies we employ:
Why our solution is unique:
Ideakids is a blend of a program for skills development, a collection of customized materials and a practice of collaboration and solution development created for kids.
Enabled by an open innovation digital platform where schools and institution can create and launch challenges and where students can submit solutions.
Two components:
1- A website that allows to create and launch challenges by any school or institution and also allows the teams in classrooms and to submit solution by the teams in classrooms and schools.
2- An app for smartphones and tablets that allows students to browse, submit and edit a solution.
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Why our solution is human-centered:
Design Thinking is a easy to learn user centered process to solve problems and create new solutions.
The program would allow to activate schools and institutions with the help of sponsors to launch challenges aimed to solve real problems in the school or in communities, regions and even countries.
We start by training volunteers and teachers or giving them access to online training materials to learn how to offer workshops to kids, how to transform the classrooms into low cost innovation spaces and how lo launch challenges using our digital platform.
Sponsors or governments use the platform to offer incentives to the students.
How people will access our solution:
The program is deployed trough ideakidz.org
ideakidz is a full-fledged ideation platform with a crowd formed by primary and secondary students., available to any school or institution with a computer with internet access and a current generation browser.
The website will offer a set of downloadable materials and training videos, a challenge creation section, a challenge browsing section and a section to submit solutions
The website will allow to companies, institutions or governments to propose or select challenges to sponsor.
There will be an iOS and android app for smartphones and tablets for challenge browsing and submission of solutions.
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Technology-Readiness Level:
1-3 (Formulation)Add a comment
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Our organization:
Non-Profit
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Where we are located:
Mexico
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How we will sustain our team financially:
Phase 1-Now
Team consisting of three volunteer instructors and two developers all working part time in the creation of materials and the development of the platform
Goal of launching a beta in December 2017
Phase 2 - January 2018
Use of founding committed by Axtel foundation and rotary international
Application for government grants
Definition of sustainable business model
Phase 3 - May 2018
Versión 1.0 of platform
Launching of sustainable business model
Full time commitment of team
Considering option of a for profit version of the platform oriented to private schools, universities and organizations and the creation of private academies with scholarships.
The factors limiting our success:
1- Lack of time or resources from me or my team
2- Lack of volunteer support
3- Lack of funding
4- Lack of a developers team fully committed to the platform
5- Lack of access to technology from schools or students
6- Lack of interest in public schools or institutions
7- Lack of interest or support from civic organizations
8- lack of interest and / or support from government
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How long we have been working on our solution:
Less than 1 yearAdd a comment
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How long it will take to develop a pilot:
3-6 monthsAdd a comment
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How long it will take to scale beyond our pilot:
12-18 monthsAdd a comment
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Our expected annual budget:
$160000
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How much of our budget we've secured to date:
$40000
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Our promotional materials:
https://www.instagram.com/ideakidz/
https://www.facebook.com/ideakidzprogram/
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We're looking for partners in these fields:
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Why we're applying to Solve:
Exactly that is the reason we are applying to Solve:
To get acces to the resources, the expertise, the mentorship, and the know-how that will allow us to:
1- Design a better education experience
2- Identify better ways way to engage students,schools, communities, organizations and governments
3- Create a world class digital platform
But above all we need help to
4- Create a sustainable business model for ideakidz.
Thanks
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Our current partners:
We have founding from Axtel Foundation and a pledge from the local rotary chapter to double available founding
We are working with bluebox ventures defining the right approach to promote entrepreneurship skills in the students
We are in talks with latinamerican Fab Labs Network to use additive technology in ideakidz
The SOLVE community?
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Solution Team
- Mario Saldana ideakidz
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Our Solution
Ideakidz, Design Thinking and Innovation Challenges for kids
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