MIT Solve

Step 2

Our Solution

1Scope.com: promote, manage, evaluate youth opportunities

Our solution's stage of development:

Pre-Seed

Our solution:

1Scope is a central hub for students aged 12 to 25 to access opportunities which develop character

and skills. It allows institutions, such as organisations, universities and government bodies, to promote

and manage all student focused opportunities across Australia. These opportunities can include work

experience, workshops, internships, conferences, competitions, mentoring and volunteering.

Our pitch:

1Scope is a central hub for students aged 12 to 25 to access opportunities which develop character and skills. It allows institutions, such as organisations, universities and government bodies, to promote and manage all student focused opportunities across Australia. These opportunities can include work experience, workshops, internships, conferences, competitions, mentoring and volunteering.

1Scope combines three primary functionalities:

Opportunity posting (e.g., seek.com)
Event management (e.g., eventair)
Evaluation tool (e.g., qualtrics)

We currently have 8000 students on the platform, approximately 150 opportunities crowd-sourced through institutions (which makes this scalable). These opportunities all focus on developing skills of the future. It's all on one central hub which makes it easy for students to search, apply and evaluate.

Example programs we have provided for students with our partners include:

Hololens (Microsoft Australia)
Virtual reality (Devika Learning)
Social entrepreneurship (AIESEC)
Design (ADOBE)
Work experience (Haymarket HQ and City of Parramatta)
Negotiations (Future Skills HQ)
Interview skills (Morgan McKinley)
Coding a web portfolio (OpenLearning and Suncorp)
Future of probability (BCG)
Puzzle Based Learning (University of Sydney)

Global scale: We have institutions on the platform that are global (AIESEC, 180 Degrees Consulting, Morgan McKinley, Microsoft etc) and the aim is to onboard global opportunities and communities so students can develop skills across the board.

The problem:

Students: Students lack knowledge about what's available to them outside of formal channels. Current systems are adhoc and school opportunities often lack real experiences that enable students to make informed decisions. Research suggests that there is a lack of skill development relevant to future jobs (FYA and PwC 2015 report).

Institutions: Institutions devote resources to create, promote and deliver skill-building programs. They have noted the lack of transparency and accountability associated with measuring and visualising the program outcomes across time, location and cohorts.

Why our solution will solve the problem:

Our solution has shown traction across all stakeholders. We launched the MVP in November 2016, secured a $1M investment in February 2017 and to date, we have over 8000 students on the platform, across 225+ Australian schools. Over 66% of students have applied and attended an opportunity, and 24% have evaluated an opportunity on the platform. We are consolidating the market by collaborating to promote and evaluate quality skill-building programs and job opportunities for young people with some of Australia's leading companies and institutions (Microsoft, ADOBE, Salesforce, AIE, Beacon Foundation, Macquarie University, Aqualand, UNSW, City of Parramatta and many more).

Who recommended you to Solve - or - how did you find Solve?

Mark Reading and Jens Schumacher (Atlassian)

Step 3

Step 4

The technologies we employ:

Consumer-facing software (mobile applications, cloud services)
Digital systems (machine learning, control systems, big data)

Why our solution is unique:

1Scope combines three unique elements to create a complete ecosystem for student opportunities.

Opportunity marketplace – to create and promote opportunities
Event management software - to manage and support through communication and organisation systems
Evaluation software - evaluation features to consistently and accurately measure the outcomes of student focused programs

1Scope is equipped with the technical functionality to facilitate all three value propositions, enhanced through machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities.

The platform has also been approved by the department of education for students to use in school. The team works closely on the ground with 100+ schools.

Why our solution is human-centered:

1Scope provides equal access to quality opportunities for all students, including those in disadvantaged and rural communities, by enabling these communities to access opportunities previously reserved for their peers at inner city and advantaged schools. 1Scope aims to level the playing field for education and skill development by enabling any student to develop the necessary skills to achieve their personal goals, regardless of post code. Our team is a great example of the capacity of youth- our CEO is 26, our UX designers are 15 and 18, and majority of our team is 25 or younger. We lead by example.

How people will access our solution:

1Scope is currently operating primarily in Sydney, and is planning to expand across Australia throughout the remainder of 2017.

1Scope is completely free for all students, schools and not for profits. Over 90% of the opportunities promoted on 1Scope are also free, providing affordable and accessible opportunities to the communities in which we operate.

After having conversations with Beacon Foundation (they work with over 120 Australian schools), we are exploring ways for students in low-connectivity areas to access the platform.

Technology-Readiness Level:

6-8 (Demonstration)

Our website

https://1scope.com

Step 5

Our organization:

For-Profit

Where we are located:

Australia

How we will sustain our team financially:

1Scope received funding in February 2017 which has enabled the team to progress the product from MVP to a functional product. 1Scope has offered institutions free use of the product during the pilot phase, but is planning to charge institutions by the end of 2017. Multiple institutions, such as Macquarie University, have agreed to allocate a budget towards licensing the 1Scope software. The aim is to work with more organisations to build a product that is valuable while also understanding the potential revenue streams. Ongoing financial sustainability will be reliant on paying customers, or additional investment.

The factors limiting our success:

High cost of labour and technical complexity: 1Scope has employed three full time web developers due to the technical complexity of the product. The high labour costs of this development limit the available product development runway.

Multiple established competitors: We have found that larger institutions are often already paying for the services of established competitors providing event management or survey software.

Long sales cycles: Especially to onboard larger institutions.

How long we have been working on our solution:

1 year

How long it will take to develop a pilot:

We have already developed a pilot.

How long it will take to scale beyond our pilot:

6-12 months

Our expected annual budget:

864000

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

456000

Our promotional video:

https://youtu.be/OXaxKzoxv9o

Our promotional materials:

https://www.instagram.com/1scopehq/

https://www.facebook.com/1scopehq/

Step 6