Digital Innovation Lab for Kids and Youngsters

Every year in Mexico 1.3 million students will graduate from Universities and Technical schools. Only 3% will find a job in the first year that requires a university degree. Nevertheless, when you look at industry 4.0 companies, job openings are growing by the minute. 
The OCDE and the World Economic Forum among other organizations already laid out the skills needed to access quality jobs. 
The gap between the graduates and the opportunities is only growing bigger as exponential technologies are growing faster and better. 
Our blended learning platform empowers any teacher to deliver our Digital Innovation program to kids between 8 and 16 years old. Using leading industry certification processes, In 3 years we develop 4.0 skills on our students by translating those processes in engaging activities, and sparking the innovation seed in them to create the next generation rock stars of silicon valley. 

According to the OCDE today 92% of children in Latin America will go to elementary school but only 30% will graduate from high school. The rest will be either part of the informal economy or in low skills jobs that will be soon replaced by automation processes.

Every year in Mexico,  an estimate of 1.3 million students will graduate from Universities and Technical schools. Only 3% will find a job in the first year that requires a university degree. 70% of them will not find a job 2 years after their graduation (IMEF.org).

The OCDE reported in its “Skills STrategic Diagnostic Report: Mexico 2017” that 30.9% of Mexican companies are struggling to find candidates that have the required skills to apply for vacancies. The skills gap will put out of the market 50% of Universities in Latin America.
 
Nevertheless, new jobs for the digital era are created every day in Mexico. According to IJALTI, Jalisco’s Institute of Information Technologies, Industry 4.0 jobs are on-demand and rising.
 
Even though 63.9% of Mexicans have access to the internet, 36% of Mexicans do not have basic digital literacy  (INEGI).

Our goal is to impact  kids between 8-16 years old to help them find their digital skills and talents. 

For kids that will pursue a degree at the university we want to influence them to get into a program that will give them the opportunity to access the labor market of industry 4.0 jobs.. 

For kids that will not have the opportunity to continue their education, they will have a technical degree that will let them apply for industry 4.0 jobs at an entry level. 

We’re also looking to spark the innovation seed and help them to develop a digital product that might led them to an entrepreneurial path. 

We’re actually working with both, private and public schools impacting a total of 625 kids. We have one club in Michoacán, 3 clubs in Estado de México, 2 clubs in Jalisco and 1 club in Guatemala.

SOLUTION
Gnius Club is providing a turnkey solution to deliver our Digital Innovation Program for public and private schools by providing the curriculum, content and the distribution platform with one clear goal: to bridge the unemployment gap by 
1.- Developing in students 8-16 the skills and knowledge required in Industry 4.0 jobs
2.- Spark in them the innovation seed teaching by them to use technology to create digitals solutions.
3.- Switch time spent by kids in digital media consumption to digital solutions creation

DISTRIBUTION
Using our proprietary digital platform that can be operated with a battery and without an internet connection,  we have developed a solution that can transform any space in a school into a Digital Innovation Lab.

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE  
Using OCDE's "Future of Jobs Report", The Yidan prize and the Economist Intelligence Group report "Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI)" and the "Unleashing the Potential Transforming Technical and Vocational Education and Training" Report from UNESCO, we designed the curriculum to cover skills and knowledge demanded by private companies recruiters. To accomplish this we divided the curriculum in 4 pillars: An Innovation Toolkit, Industry 4.0 Technologies, Digital Citizenship and Soft Skills. Using industry soft skills certification processes, like SCRUM for collaboration, we develop soft skills on our students by translating those processes in engaging activities, developing not only the skills needed, also preparing the kids to get familiar with the work system. 

LEARNING STRATEGY
Our learning strategy has been designed to use the teachers as activators of digital native students by leveraging on the tech-savvy-skills of digital natives and to empower any teacher to become a Digital Innovation teacher. With an easy user experience design, a set of tools to assess students and a simple to understand lesson plans using video, we bridge the gap between digital migrant teachers and technology.

TECHNOLOGY
The technology and tools used to teach industry 4.0 technologies are open source and in the market. We curate different technologies in order to use those ones supported by stable and big communities. From a Raspberry Pi with scratch to teach programming and I.O.T, to microbit with sensors and to teach electronics, we make sure that the curriculum is updated constantly with the newest technologies. 

Our solution is very ambitious when it comes to innovation since we tackle different problems that haven’t been addressed in the learning experiences of the education industry. We will mention the most important ones going from higher-level problems to lower-level problems.

1. The skills gap.
We focus on applied skills, not on information or knowledge. Information is already a commodity and the school curriculum at the elementary level is still based on delivering information and memory assessments. 

2. Fixed Curriculum VS Live Curriculum
Our platform allows us to update our curriculum constantly and we do it on a triple-helix system: Industry standards on skills, new teaching tools for teachers, and students input on content form.

3. The evaluation system
The grading system in Latin America continues to stigmatise error as something bad. Failure in schools is the result of having made a mistake. As we develop innovation skills in our students we use failure as a learning tool. In order to do this, we developed a real-time assessment tool that allows us to create skill profiles understanding the digital talents and abilities of our students without the use of tests. 

4. Teachers V.S. Coaches
We use teachers as coaches. Our platform is a powerful tool to enable any teacher as Digital Innovation Coach in 1 week. 

5. OFF-LINE Distribution
Using a Raspberry Pi as a local server, our platform can deliver our full program to any school even without electricity using a power bank and tablets to teach our students. 

Our goal at Gnius Club is to reduce the unemployment gap caused by automation, reduce the digital divide, reduce the number of digital addicts and change the mindset towards a culture of solvers.

By providing an immersive 3 year digital innovation program, using our proprietary platform we train teachers and teach kids the skills and knowledge demanded by Industry 4.0 jobs.

From the first months, parents report changes in children showing greater interest in digital creation tools, more responsible use of technology, care for their private information and less leisure time on devices.

In terms of skills development, a rector from Tecnológico de Monterrey University wrote us a letter explaining that the students who are part of our program are obtaining the highest grades in the admission test, especially with regard to soft skills.

At the end of the program we graduate kids with a trained-for-work certification that will help them to find a job. As part of the graduation process our students launch a digital innovation prototype that can led to an entrepreneurial path. In this matter UNACH, the state University of Chiapas, has already made an offer to develop a student prototype as an actual product. Our student has 6 months in the program an is 11 years old. 

We're actually serving 637 students (137 paid, 500 free)

In one year we are aiming to serve 5,000 students

In five years we ate aiming to serve 50,000 students

Gnius Club was designed since the beginning to make a deep impact in the community we are serving. Our 3-year intervention allows us to truly make an impact in education and transform kids from digital consumers to digital creators. 

For 3 years we tested our learning approach by delivering our program as an after school product. To date, 637 kids are part of our program (100 paid, 500 free).

This year we’re changing our approach to impact by taking two new approaches. First, we are taking our program as part of the curriculum of private schools by licensing our platform, program, and content. This will let us have a more competitive price as we are transferring the operational costs to the schools and teaching their teachers to deliver our program. With this change to our approach, we estimate to triple the number of kids enrolled in our program. Second, with one successful pilot in a public school, we want to get grants to place our program in public schools.  In order to maintain the quality of our learning experience, we developed a Bootcamp for teachers and we’re partnering with other NGOs that are already working with public schools.

By the end of the next school cycle, we want to have 5,000 kids enrolled in our program and in 5 years we want to reach at least 50,000 students. 

1. FINANCIAL

We founded the company using seed capital and government funds and we ran out of cash last year. In order to keep going, we became very lean and manage to work in a very fragile break-even point. As we keep adding students to our program we're quietly leaving the break-even point into a profitable stage of the company. In order to grow faster and take advantage of the impact opportunity that we're living as a company, we need to raise capital to get a sales team. 

2. MARKET

We haven't crossed the chasm. As we created the category in the market we still depend on early adopters. We're also in that stage in which we do not have a known brand nor enough operations running to get the trust needed for the elementary school market.  When it comes to our marketing strategy, after three years of trying different communication strategies ,we're facing workshop blindness. Today we are struggling to send the right message to our different target groups.

3. CULTURAL

The skills and concepts that we teach to kids are very well known in the job industry but completely unknown in the elementary educational market for both parents and schools. The understanding of the relevance and the impact of our product is unknown most of the time. In order to make a sale we engage in teaching parents and school these industry concepts.

1.- FINANCIAL

a) As we mentioned earlier, we are trying a different approach this year by approaching funds to put our program into public schools. Before COVID-19 we were already working in a pilot for 1,000 students in Michoacán and another for 2,000 students in Guadalajara. 

b) On the option of getting our program as part of the curriculum of private elementary schools, we’re very advanced on negotiations with 3 schools that will give us an estimate of 1,000 new paid students.

c) We’re also exploring the possibility to get new investors in our startup and already talking to some VCs.

2. MARKETING

a) With the COVID-19 crisis, we launched a Virtual Campus experience that has given us the chance to get into the homes of our students and some moms that are influencers. We’re already interviewing moms and dads to understand their needs better.

b) This crisis has also made people more prone to understand global challenges. This opens an opportunity to communicate the impact of our solution. We’re already designing a campaign with a completely different approach to take this unique opportunity.

3. CULTURAL

We started an initiative in cooperation with industry chambers and innovation hubs to develop a school certification. This certification will validate the school approach to skills and knowledge for future jobs. 

MEXICO (PAID)

We are currently working in 4 different states and operating 8 different campuses: Chiapas (1), Estado de Mexico (3), Uruapan (1) and Jalisco (2). These operations are currently running as an after school program and we have 137 kids enrolled and paying a monthly fee.

MEXICO (FREE)

As the school cycle started in august we launched operations to attend 500 students in a public school to test our program as part as de curriculum.

GUATEMALA (PAID)

We're currently working in one school in Guatemala City with 43 students as part of their after school program.

Full time staff: 10 people

Contractors:6

Rudy Laddaga - Co-founder and Team Leader (CEO)

“2009 Entrepreneur of the year”, Failure Sensei, Board Member of the World Summit Awards, Board Member of Industry 4.0 Cluster. He coded his first program when he was 12 years old. Frustrated by his first coding school, he has been dreaming of Gnius Club since then.

Hugo Canales - Story Gnius (Chief of Multimedia Production)
He challenged himself to use Microsoft Word to create a complete series of characters and infographics.
Now he is using this superpower (and better software) to create amazing animations and graphics to teach kids to innovate. 

Luis Gerardo Trejo - Chief of Learning Innovation (Chief of Academic Content)
Teach for All alumni, teacher in the morning and learning experience designer in the afternoon. This amazing architect found his passion in teaching and now he designs lessons and teaches them to transform kids into digital innovators. 

Noe Cruz - Code Gnius (CTO)
With a master's degree in computer science and always ready to help with a great attitude, Noe brings his experience to our lessons and makes magic with code to make our education platform tick every day. 

Al of these everyday superheroes not only takes care of their responsibilities as chiefs of their areas, they also teach our program in order to make it better every day. 

World Summit Awards we have recently signed an agreement in which our kids will be able to send their prototypes to the youth contest.

TAAL project we have recently signed a collaboration agreement to teach blockchain in our program. 

Industrial Cluster 4.0 we are coordinating industry skills standards with them.

CANACINTRA OCCIDENTE we're coordinating a project with them to use their facilities in the country to teach our program. 

Enseña por México we're using their teachers as coaches for our program.

Instituto Jalilsciense de Tecnologías de Información We use their talent study to understand industry skills and we are going to start giving our program on their premises. 

IBM: they are letting us use their A.I. platform to tech kids A.I.

Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas: we're about to sign an agreement to start using our student's prototypes to create actual products to address challenges in the state. 

We're currently working with 1 business model and exploring 2 new ones:

PLUG IN:

In this business model, we partner with private schools or co-workings to offer our program in their premises as an after school option to their students. School provides the space, electricity, and internet. We provide de lab equipment, the teacher, our program and the platform. We sign a three-year contract in which we agree to charge a monthly fee of $31 USD per student. We split the tuition, we take 75% of it and give to the school 25%. 

INNOVATION LAB:

In this business model, we partner with private schools and license our program (platform + content) enabling the school to mount a Digital Innovation Lab (DIL) in their premises. We sign a three-year contract in which we charge $6.2 USD per student each month. We train their teachers to give our program, they get access to a help desk and we provide the lab equipment. Ownership of the equipment is ours. 

INNOVOX:

In this business model, we partner with public schools and license our program enabling the school to activate a DIL in their premises. We sign a one-year contract in which we charge $1 USD per student each month. We train their teachers to give our program, they get access to a help desk and we get grants to fund the lab equipment. We partner with internet providers to get free internet access to the school.

Our path includes four revenue streams:

1.- Rising Investment:
We're currently looking for investors to buy equity so we can take the impact opportunity that the company is living right now as we stated in other sections.

2.- Selling Products:
We're currently delivering the After School version of our program in private schools and coworking spaces. 

3.- Licensing to Private Schools:
We are currently looking for schools that are looking to update their computer program to offer them a license to get access to our Digital Innovation Program.

4.- NGO's and Government grants
We're currently exploring grants to take our program to public schools.

After three years of talking to government officials, school owners, teachers, and directors, we’re still missing a crucial factor to get into the education industry: traction and trust. Traction will come as we continue getting new customers, eventually the number will be enough to build the trust needed to break the barrier with schools. Partnering with TPrize and winning it, will give us the thrust we need to grow faster and make a much bigger impact than the one we’re doing now. As we go farther into the 4th industrial revolution, bridging the skills gap will be fundamental to get jobs to younger generations. But in order to do this, we need to stop segmenting education in elementary, high school and university. The skills we need for life and to get a job must be built from elementary school in this time of exponential changes. Partner with us in our journey to re-shape individuals as we disrupt education and change the world for good. 

Local Governments in Mexico: We would like them to adopt our program and give it to public schools.

Federal Government in Mexico: We want a chance to present our program to them and aim to pilot it in rural schools. 
USAID DIV Fund: A recommendation could help us to get funding for public schools.

International Baccalaureate (ibo.org): We would like to be their technology track provider. We just want the opportunity to pitch our program to them.

Sistema UNOi: We would like to be their technology program provider. Their Manifesto is very aligned with our program. We have interviewed some school owners that use their program and they think that the tech track needs some improvement. 

MIT Media Lab: Our kids are creating digital prototypes for solutions to different problems. We're convinced that kids imagination could be an interesting approach to innovation. We see our students helping to solve MIT's innovation challenges.