Mentorii

65% of Colombian students are not happy with their study plans, where 70% of them say they haven't received support and guidance in this process. As a consequence, 1 in 2 university students in Colombia drop out of the universities (ASCUN, 2019).

So, this solution is created to solve doubts and fears about their career paths that have not been solving completely. 

We created a community of mentees and mentors who, through a technological platform, where young people are inspired with the life stories of industry leaders in entrepreneurship, technology and innovation. Also, they can discover tools such as books, events, courses, workshops mentors recommend or created for them. 

Additional, we believe that mentorii has an global space, because it will allow find international mentors and connect young people from different countries who have the same questions, that together they can be inspired, discover, learn and build their career paths.

In Colombia alone, there are around 10 million young people between 14 and 28 years of age (DANE, 2020).

65% of university students are not happy with the study plans they chose, where 70% of them say they have not received support and guidance in this process. As a consequence, 1 in 2 university students in Colombia drop out of the universities (ASCUN, 2019; El MUNDO, 2016).

Additionally, 20.5% of young people between the ages of 14 and 28 are unemployed; being the group with the highest unemployment rate in the country (DANE, 2020). Also, according to the GEM (2019), Colombian youth no longer choose as much as before to start their own company, due to the different difficulties they have. 

According to this information, Colombian youths show difficulties with the development of their careers paths, which unfortunately generates a negative cycle where they do not find opportunities to leave their contexts. The doubts, fears and uncertainties that young people have in their study programs, transit to industry, jobs or generation of entrepreneurship are the problems that mentorii tries to solve.

Mentorii helps young people build their career paths with role models of the diverse industries of the country through a technology platform that uses videos, LMS (learning management system) and the option to schedule one to one talks between mentees and mentors to provide personalized coaching

Mentorii has three major components.

1 Inspire young people with positive careers paths through lives videos of mentors.  These lives videos allow ask question and solve doubts of the audience. Also, these are an excellent opportunity to know the person, what he has been done to success, the fails that he had have or other recommendations. 

2 Exploring diverse life stories and tools that mentors recommended or created through the sections of the website called Lives of Stories and Tools. Both sections can be filtered to help mentees to explore more personalized according to their interests or needs.

3 Learning through different tools that mentorii and mentors have developed. Mentees can buy books, courses, talks with mentors, workshops and tickets for events. Also, the platform has the possibility to schedule talks one to one depend on the available time between them, and it has an LMS to teach online educative content own of mentorii.

The target population is young people between 20 and 35 years old in Colombia (around 12 million).

However, our target audience is young people who have an interest in entrepreneurship, innovation or technology. Additionally, those who have the need to receive support in the construction of their career path to solve doubts, know where to start, get inspired and learn what to do and not to do. That according to previous information, those who may be more target to this solution are around 20% who are those without jobs. 

The information of our public we have learnt from constant communication with them through the different channels that we have open: Whatsapp, website, social networks, live events and phone calls. We have carried out more than 300 one-on-one interviews with members of our community to understand what motivated them to be part of it, what topics they wanted to see, in what aspect they wanted to receive accompaniment, etc.

As a result of the learning, we have classified our users into 5 archetypes that help us understand their fears, dreams, and ideal communication channels. Which has allowed us to be more assertive in the content we develop.

Our solution creates a community of inspiration and learning for Colombian youth who have an interest in working on entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. So that they can feel oriented in the process and can develop skills and capacities for their career paths whit the guide of leaders of the Colombian industry who have already achieved success. This solution is directly related to good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurship because they want to help young people create their own businesses and be the engine of new jobs, or because they want to get decent jobs in areas that offer them more opportunities. 

Mentorii aims to accompany young people in their training career through access to a community that begins with access to learning about the life stories of Colombian mentors and continues with access to the learning tools that the mentors recommended. The solution also includes a virtual space where mentees and mentors can continue to have personalized spaces and young people can take virtual courses related to the topics.

Our solution is innovative because it highlights the importance of having good role models, and that these mentors recommend or accompany you in your process. Other companies work on mentoring but without telling the stories behind the mentors without generating that inspiration that is important. There are also other vocational guidance companies but these are very focused on traditional professions, but at Mentorii we work from entrepreneurship, innovation and technology that are cross-cutting areas for all industries and professions. 

Additionally, our solution is unique because it is a community that leverages technology to generate life stories, publicize tools, schedule personalized mentoring, and generate online learning spaces.

Our solution is a new application of existing technologies.

The mentorii software includes a virtual environment that has the following components for users:

1. Live Stories Module, our software is connected to our streaming platform  (Streamyard, Youtube), so our users can view and ask in our lives directly in the platform. 
2. Stories module, it is an environment to explore the different life stories of the mentors for free with filters, tags, categories and description of the profiles of mentors.
3. Tools module, we use the e-commerce interface so that users can learn through books, events, courses, mentoring, workshops. Users can download, book or purchase them. 
4. Online courses module, Mentorii has developed educational content that teaches through an LMS that allows us to create a learning environment with good practices, process monitoring, evaluations and certifications.
5. Personalized mentoring module, is a technology in development for scheduling and conducting one-to-one talks through the platform.

In order to be better and better, at Mentorii we empower and strengthen our processes, thanks to the results and the information we obtain from our users. Through the services of cloud functions, authentication, cloud storage, apis and realtime database we synchronize all our information and maintain the traceability of each of our users and learn.

We have tested this solution with our current users and have shown positive results. Our initial development is: www.mentorii.co

Additionally, we leverage existing technology that has already had results and verifications in other scenarios.

Mentorii is a solution that seeks in the long term to achieve social and economic changes in young Colombians, through the generation of good jobs or inclusive entrepreneurship.

The inputs that Mentorii invests and provides for the construction of the solution are:
1. Time, financial resources and solid and practical knowledge on the development of the new business model.
2. Network of volunteer mentors who want to donate their time and share their knowledge.
3. Access to tools to accompany the professional development of young people.
4. Technology and a team with the knowledge to appropriate technology.
5. Experience and solidity of the two companies that founded the entrepreneurial team that operate in the region's national educational and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

We have three main activities where youth receive accompaniment in our collaborative community:

1. Youth participation in the life stories of mentors. Access to meet good role models.
2. Participation between users. Access to interaction between people who have similar fears, questions or situations to be a support network.
3. More personalized accompaniment spaces. Access to 1 to 1 mentoring where there is a closer relationship between the mentor and mentee.

To achieve the following outcomes:
1. Short term outcomes: Inspire young people through the life stories of mentors, ensure that young people receive the recommendations of mentors and recognize the different paths they have to develop their careers in entrepreneurship, innovation or technology.
2. Medium term outcomes: Young people develop the competencies and skills that their mentors advised, through the consumption of tools and their implementation of them. 
3. Long Term outcomes: Young people develop their own businesses or are able to find decent and relevance jobs in the areas of interest that allow them achieve social and economic improves. In this way these young people will become future mentors and role models for others. 

Today we have impacted 2,700 people in our community. This number includes: the people who have viewed the videos of the mentors, the people who have registered to our platform or social networks and receive our educational content, and the people who have acquired some of the tools such as books, personalized talks with mentors, workshops, and more.

For the following year, we hope to impact 10,000 people. Of which 50% will have seen at least one video life story and 10% will have purchased at least one tool.

For the next 5 years, we hope to have 50,000 people registered in the community. We forecast that 70% of them will have seen at least one life story and 20% will have purchased at least one tool.

Goals for our next year:

* Participation of at least double the number of mentors this year.

* Community of more than 10,000 enrolled young people.

* Capitalizing of mentor's life stories and tools to increase  sales of tools that make the model profitable in the long run.

* New capital investment that allows us  improving technology to make the process more automatic and more scalable.

Goals for within five years:

*Scaling of our coverage to another country in Central or South America such as Brazil, Peru or Mexico.

* Having a mobile application that allows users to connect with mentors and each other in a very easy and intuitive way.

* Recognition in Colombia for being the community that supports the process of career path for young people with an interest in entrepreneurship, innovation and technology.

* Having at least 3 agreements with public or private institutions to sponsor young people in their processes.

* 50,000 people registered in the community. We forecast that 70% of them will have seen at least one life story and 20% will have purchased at least one tool.

The main barriers that Mentorii would have are:

Cultural barriers: Colombia is a country that tends to use analog or face-to-face tools, so that technological appropriation is slower and in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, although people express interest in using technological and digital tools, it costs a lot to appropriate their use. 

Operational Barriers: The solution contemplates not only virtual accompaniment, but its complement with personalized consultancies, so that as the number of users or beneficiaries of this type of tool increases; equipment and technology could present difficulties that guarantee attention capacity. 

Financial barriers: Project resources currently come from a Colombian university, in case the university cuts its innovation  budget, the project may be compromised. For this reason, it is essential to obtain other sources of funding.

For the barriers described above, we have identified the following solutions or action plans:

Cultural barriers: In the model it is proposed to have a support from other channels such as social networks to provide support and awareness to the use of the platform. Additionally, one of the pillars of the solution is videos, which are also a way to explain to the user. We will also leverage the initiatives of the government and other institutions that promote the use of technologies and solutions such as mentoring, which as a result of covid-19 have become a national and global priority.

Operational barriers: We propose new technological developments to make more automatic the process of acquisition, attention and coaching mentees. These improvements will be with the obtaining of more financial resources. Also, with a consolidation multidisciplinary teams that allow us to have the ability to find optimal solutions and the latest technology for the improvement and expansion of the solution.

Financial barrier: Participation in national or international prizes or programs for entrepreneurship,  and beginning the process of participation in investment rounds that allow us have different sources of financing while sales begin to yield the expected profits.

Full time staff: Two (2)

Part-time staff: Ten (10)

Contractors: Four (4)

Other workers: Two (2)

ESTRATEK: Is a group of professional entrepreneurs, that has been developing disruptive businesses for 8 years within large corporations; clients / allies are large companies, and life-changing ventures are build with them, changing their status quo, creating markets and solutions never before explored. https://estratek.com.co/

Universidad Santo Tomás: private, non-profit Catholic Higher Education Institution present in five cities in Colombia Is the oldest university in Colombia with 440 years and the mision to promote the integral education, through actions and processes of teaching-learning, research and social projection.

We work with  social business model canvas to build our project, that is detailed here:

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J...

* Partner contribution

* Mentorii services: mentorships, workshops, courses, books and experiences recomended by our mentors, design by mentorii and sold in our platform

We find Solve as the perfect space to develop and get our platform to next level in order to be able to escalate and accomplish our goal, so we can impact millions of lives of entrepreneurs and young people that needs support for developing their careers and building their own path. We know that MIT capacities are going to help us have a better and faster platform with all the components we want to have. We know that in order to be sustainable in the long term we, not only need, funds, but also the experience of the best advisors in the world as well as media exposure

MIT Faculty for the technology solution and Solve members in terms of mentors and advisors. We will appreciate a lot to have another view in our model and received advise from the most experts in the world.

MIT Faculty because we are seeking to build a better platform and user experience and Solve members to have access to the best mentors and advisors by having another view and get a stronger business model.

Our long term outcome as we mentioned before is giving opportunities to Youth to access to better jobs or to learn how biulding new companies, that generate more employees.