Youth, Skills, & the Workforce of the Future

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:

• Outcome: 10,000 design thinking workshops
  Measurement Plan: Number of workshops registered in the platform and materials downloaded
• Outcome: 1000 challenges designed, created and launched
  Measurement Plan: Number of challenges registered and sponsored in the platform with materials downloaded by schools or institutions
• Outcome: 100 innovation spaces created in public schools
  Measurement Plan: Number of spaces registered in the platform with their respective sponsors

The populations we will benefit initially:

• Low-income economies (< $1005 GNI)
• Primary
• Secondary
• Urban
• Suburban

The regions we will benefit initially:

• Latin America and the Caribbean

The technologies we employ:

• Consumer-facing software (mobile applications, cloud services)
• Management & design approaches

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.

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.

Technology-Readiness Level:

http://www.ideakidz.org

Our organization:

Non-Profit

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 

How long we have been working on our solution:

How long it will take to develop a pilot:

How long it will take to scale beyond our pilot:

Our expected annual budget:

$160000

How much of our budget we've secured to date:

$40000

https://youtu.be/_Q14Re2ZUpU

Our promotional materials:

https://twitter.com/ideakidz

https://www.instagram.com/ideakidz/

https://www.facebook.com/ideakidzprogram/

We're looking for partners in these fields:

• Future of Work
• 21st Century Skills
• Primary Education
• Secondary Education
• STEM Education

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

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?