TeleKonnect

TeleKonnect aims to teach hundreds of disadvantaged youth to speak conversational English as a basic skill using phone calls. This will open up opportunities such as jobs, higher education and vocational training.

In the current changing world where new technology constantly disrupt the market, people must adapt to changing circumstances by constantly acquiring new skills. This can only be done through training and higher education. However, since most of the resources are only available in English and it is only spoken by a minority in Bangladesh, many in this country are underprivileged. TeleKonnect aims to connect these users who want to learn English with volunteers using phone calls.

TeleKonnect will be accessed by volunteers through a website which will connect to a server. The server will host the system of database and logic to forward calls from phone to the volunteer's browser.

• Each volunteer will sign up on TeleKonnect website.
• After 80 hours of volunteering and 20 hours of training new volunteers, they will be given a certificate to encourage volunteering
• By prompting users to rate volunteers through an automated voice recognition system after a call, they will be ranked by TeleKonnect and the volunteer of the month will be awarded. Quality control will be achieved with this as volunteers will strive to improve quality.

As for the users:

• With TeleKonnect, users can call our toll-free phone number to connect to a volunteer and speak for 30 minutes at each session. Each phone number can be used for only one session per day. 
• They speak in English and the volunteer corrects them if the user makes a mistake.
• The volunteer rates the user and tracks their progress by adding comments to the user's profile that TeleKonnect creates automatically. 
• Calls are logged for future training and dispute resolution.
• After 100 hours of conversation, users are given a spoken test. After passing this, they are connected with other users with similar progress under supervision of a volunteer. This will solve overcrowding.

Even though the national curriculum teaches basic English, these take a knowledge-based approach with little focus on intuitively understanding the language. The majority of the Bangladeshi population cannot speak English at a conversational level, preventing them from:

• applying to jobs where being able to speak English is essential 
• attaining higher education since most lectures are in English
• vocational training for technical jobs which require English
• adapting to changing market conditions as most resources teaching new skills are only available in English
• working abroad

While there are English courses, these are inaccessible as they are taught in cities and are expensive. 

1. Researches show that having conversations is a great way to learn new languages as it teaches language intuitively. Language is not knowledge, it is a skill and like all skills, it needs practice.

2. Jobs such as in marketing requires English as it is a global language and it is necessary to tap into the global market. Vocational training has resources in English as well which becomes inaccessible to majority of the people. 

TeleKonnect teaches English, so these opportunities become available.

Millions of people who previously had no access to resources teaching English will now be able to learn from their home at no cost. In matter of months of using our service, they will be able to become fluent in conversational English.

Therefore, now, they will be able to access higher education as lectures and textbooks are mostly in English. 

Use internal system to increment number of calls as a new call is made - 15000 weekly calls exceeding duration of ten minutes

Monthly survey sample of users - Help 5000 people get a new job, higher education or vocational training that they could not previously attain

Keep an internal database of all phone numbers and their corresponding number of hours of total call time. Users who exceeds 100 hours of conversation time will be given a spoken test and will be counted as proficient if they pass - 10000 users becomes proficient at conversational English

X brings together two completely unrelated groups of people and provides what both requires. The volunteers require experience, whereas the users, many of whom don't have access to the internet, want to learn English at no cost. This technology bridges this gap.

Creating a digital system using phone calls to teach English and providing volunteers with opportunity to gain experience is a novel approach to solve the lack of accessible English teaching resources with little cost.

Both the users and the volunteers are people who are going to benefit from TeleKonnect. It bridges the gap between them and provides their needs. 

The users are largely going to be those who want to learn English for more opportunities mentioned in the problem section. All of these will create a workforce that will be able to constantly adapt to changing market conditions, thereby reducing structural unemployment.

There are countless graduates from English-medium schools who are fluent in English and constantly looking for work experiences. By recruiting them as volunteers they can use this work experience in their resume.

While internet penetration in Bangladeshi rural areas and those with lower income are low, almost everyonealmost everyone has access to mobile phones. Anyone can simply call our toll-free telephone number to converse in English, helping them learn English.

For the volunteers, they will connect to an online digital system from their home since they are likely to be from a higher socioeconomic status and with internet access. They will be able to rate and keep track of the users' progress.

During the research and pilot stage, we will be self-sustainable. We will work in our spare time to develop the backend digital system, as we have the necessary skills to do so.

However, financing the advertisement for growth will be difficult. However, many non-profit organizations such as "10 minutes school" are sponsored by other organizations and if our pilot with a small test group is successful, we believe, we will get sponsorship too. We believe, becoming part of the Solve community may solve this problem as national firms such as advertising agencies will be much more inclined to partner with us. 

Training for growth will be covered by existing volunteers so financing training will not be required.

• Advertising to our target audience will be difficult. Due to a lack of revenue stream, financing this will be hard. 
• The users to volunteers ratio may be high and so it may not be possible to serve all users
• There may be a mismatch between time of availability of users and volunteers
• Quality control of volunteers may be difficult

We believe that the best ideas and progress comes out of collaboration. By working together with others from the solve community, we hope to create synergy. 

While we have the technical ability to implement this project, we require help with financing it, either by designing a sustainable revenue stream or partnering with telecommunication service providers, advertising agencies and teacher training providers.

By becoming a part of the solve community, it will create exposure for this project and encourage national businesses to partner with us, allowing us to achieve our goals at low cost.