Daily Bite E-Skills

We are focused on filling the knowledge and skills gap that exists for entrepreneurs and small businesses in developing countries. Most haven't had basic training in startup principles such as customer discovery, product-market fit, channels and distribution, networking and financing. Lacking digital skills include audio-visual, video, social media marketing, website and application design. 

Many aspiring business organizations and sole traders in untapped communities do not have stable internet connections, let alone laptops or tablets on which to learn. However, most of them have a mobile phone. 

Our solution entails short, text-best courses delivered daily to the mobile phone. We will partner with an existing platform and will design the instruction.  We plan to translate our text-based courses into Spanish and English. 

If scaled globally, we could educate millions in entrepreneurship basics, and provide the digital skills needed to offer new products and services, open new markets, and trade internationally.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners in many developing nations, including those in South America lack access to business and digital education that would help them start new businesses, develop new products, connect with and access global markets. Research has shown that 40%-50% of individuals will start a new business at some point in their life (Shane). Investigation by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) found that approximately 24% of the South American populations are entrepreneurs, starting companies within the last 3 years. Colombia's rate is 22%.  The rate of small business ownership in Colombia is 6.5%, compared to 8.5% for South America overall.

One of the factors contributing to this lack of educational access is related to the digital divide. Aspiring business learners in the millions may not have tools such as laptops, desktop or tablet computers; internet access may be cost-prohibitive, unreliable, or simply not available. However, almost all of them have access to a mobile phone and are able to at least connect to a mobile network now and then. This is the opening we need for a new educational space and delivery method that is by-and-large ignored by current education suppliers, even those providing elearning solutions. 

Our solution to this problem is "Daily Bite-sized Text-based eLearning".  Our short courses will deliver a daily lesson via text to mobile phones, and will be designed in standard 30 day modules. Tex functions and messaging - Whatsapp (South America), Facebook, Telegram, and WeChat (China) - will be used. Our content will be translated and delivered in the world's three largest business languages:  English, Spanish and Mandarin, in that order of development. 

Learners will read through text-based content, and reply via text to quizzes and short questions. Links to additional resources will be provided.

We are partnering with a digital platform provider, Arist, which is located in MA and founded by students from Babson. As we have an entrepreneurship PhD as well as a digital design MSc on-staff with over 30 years of experience in these areas including instructional design and elearning, we will be building the content for the text-base courses, and integrating them with other technologies and platforms, including social media. We also plan to integrate our learning system with open source digital badges from Badgr.org (formally the Mozilla Foundation) in order to reward our learners for progress in obtaining digital skills and growing their entrepreneurial toolbox. 

Target populations:  Marginalized entrepreneurs and small business owners disadvantaged by the cost, access, or reliability of internet access. 

Targeted Segments, in order of Development:  1) Colombia 2) South America 3) Latin America 4) India (English-speaking) 5) Mainland China (Mandarin-speaking)

We are currently in Colombia assessing the needs and gaps in knowledge, broadband, internet access, and mobile phone usage amongst entrepreneurs here that we believe will lend insight into the same for South America as a whole. Colombia has the fastest rate of eCommerce growth of any South American country, and we are learning more about the factors behind that as this category of business is a main focus our our learning content initiative. 

With Covid-19 about, we are engaging with them through qualitative interviews, using basic questions around standard entrepreneurship and digital issues. As we have a Mandarin-speaking cofounder, we have begun to do so Chinese entrepreneurs as well that are located in the Mainland, using WeChat. We are also trying to form a marketing strategy for our product. 

We will bring them bite-sized learning and resources via mobile phones and motivate them to learn via digital badge earning. Reliable, steady internet access will not be needed by our learners. 

We address the challenge directly through accessible, inclusive and equitable education:  We "Enable small and new businesses, especially in untapped communities, to prosper and create good jobs through access to capital, networks, and technology".  Our solution is delivered right to the mobile phone. Learners are rewarded, an given actionable, practical items to complete in the realms of discovering markets, developing productions, forming distribution partnerships, selling globally, raising financing, marketing digitally, raising social media profiles, leveraging content and employing new technology in functions of marketing, operations and finance.