Playchop

To help shape a positive global future for aspiring and young professionals.

The rate of technological advancement raises concerns about human relevance in future workplaces. With growing technology, machines may soon replace millions of workers in industries. Research compiled by Mckinsey Global Institute predicts 800 million job losses by 2030. Advances in AI and robotics will have a drastic effect on human workers who will lose jobs to automation. New jobs will exist and existing roles will undergo reforms. The challenge for this generation is to transition and add value in the future.

Today, personal, educational and professional skills are the criteria for entry level work. Gaining work expertise in individual roles usually occur over time across job functions. With automation, probation periods to assimilate human roles will likely disappear. A different and more efficient learning approach is necessary to help humans keep up.

Our solution, Playchop, is a free platform improving human cognitive thinking using gamification and AI. Users will have engaging way of learning different work processes by simulation. Gamified activities will offer skills and ratings for these simulated work activities. New work simulations based on user activity data will be developed using AI. This will enable users develop new and further skills for work in the future.

Billions of people interact over the internet. Social networks, messaging apps and electronic mail are facilitators of human interactivity. These platforms play a crucial and global role in shaping the present human reality.

With gamification and AI, Playchop will influence the outlook for future work. The effects of work automation will lead to entirely new jobs. This is turn will need humans to gain new skill sets to fit in. Playchop user activities will provide skill proficiencies for present and future work practices.

User activity data will empower Playchop provide a variety of crucial solutions. Solutions include practical knowledge and experience for a variety of job functions. This will enable users gain skills in job functions of choice. The functionality of playchop as a learning tool helps companies solve hiring and training problems.

Playchop also intends to influence future of work with brand and consumer interactivity. Incentive based digital activities on Playchop will enable consumers-brands interactivity. There will be several levels of interactivity, leading to creation of new jobs. Activities on Playchop platform will be specific to brand objectives. Objectives could relate to business, marketing or growth. Users get to interact with a brand activity with a chance of getting participatory rewards.

The rewards strategy aims to attract users and encourage participation on the platform. This makes Playchop an excellent tool to provide empowerment for the future to users.

Playchop is a multi-sided Platform serving different customer segments with different value propositions. Users take part in gamified activities to get virtual points, and skill level rating.

Playchop provides many products free of charge, to its users. These include gamified activities, opportunities by location or interest, quizzes and puzzles.

Playchop offers a combination of relevance, context and participation to business organizations. This enables organizations use playchop for brand experiential, advertising, hiring and training purposes.

Through its offerings, Playchop provides a modern way to help users develop practical knowledge and skills applicable in real life work scenarios.

A combination of technological components contribute to make Playchop a compelling solution.

• Hosting technology enabling playboard to be on the web
• Gamification technology integrated to the platform providing context for user participation
• Artificial intelligence helping to boost performance of playchop as a solution
• User interface and user experience design enhancing platform user experience

Playchop would not exist in this form without these technological components. These are the building blocks upon which the platform will become attractive and relevant to users.

Our goal is to launch with the next 12 months. Currently, the Playchop is in private beta where we have gotten sixty users to test run. Responses obtained from test users has helped identify areas of improvement before launch.

For the next stage of testing, we intend to increase the number of users. We are developing user persona data on prospective users. We will implement data during next stage of testing to choose test users with identical profiles to our user personas. we will add further updates based on test feedback and product will launch with ongoing improvements while live.

We already know our target audience, their affiliations, interests as well as online and offline activities. We will develop outreach programs targeting this community to communicate our solution. This approach focuses on generating interest and curiosity to test our product. Additionally, we will seek multilevel partnerships with companies and organizations with follower communities. These groups can use our platform for specific work related objectives.

We will also apply relevant viral growth experiments to get more users on board at a steady growth rate.

Primarily, our solution will be deployed on mobile and web, making it very accessible to the target communities. Secondarily, we can offer packages of our solutions as bespoke products to organizations and institutions who may require a specific offering. This method is for us a great opportunity to feature our solutions in a way that is specific to the prospective user. We can leverage this for partnerships as well as exhibitions to reach and retain users. 

Currently on private beta, we have hundred users, sixty of them active. Regular feedback from the active members so far has helped us redesign and upgrade the concept. We expect to increase the number of active users in the next round of testing when upgrades have been fully implemented. The active users have reported feeling more purposeful in online activities and are very open to monitoring their rates of development using a ratings system that gives useful insights to improvement areas.

We expect to serve between 1000 and 3000 users in the next round of testing within the next 12 months. Our solution will be deployed via web only. Users will create their individual profiles and participate in a limited range of digital activities.

We estimate that in 3 years, we should be serving between several hundred thousand users and over a million users, at a growth rate of +30,000 users per month after the first 12 months. We will achieve these numbers because the platform is incentives oriented. Users get increase in ratings and virtual points per activity.

Co Founders Oluwasegun Ajayi, Ebitu Ukiwe and Baba Sanni Inuwa bring a wealth of experience in Digital Technologies.

Segun has 2 MBAs in Business Information Technology, Business Administration and Strategic Management. He has expert experience in digital media and Business Intelligence.

Physicist turned techpreneur, Ebitu has expert experience in digital media sales, Operations and Business Intelligence and . He worked with the biggest digital media company in Africa and consulted for one of the pioneer edtech companies in Nigeria.

Sanni is a relentless information technologist and tech enthusiast who has worked with the Central bank of Nigeria as a financial analyst.

We will operate with 4 revenue models for identified customer segments. These models are -

• Freemium model

• Advertising Model

• Subscription model

• Fee-for-service model

Freemium model will offer certain platform features for free including free sign up and Platform usage. Advanced features will come at a price and will be apply based on other listed models.

The advertising, subscription and fee-for-service models will apply for advanced features specific to customer segments and functionality requirements.

Data from internet usage statistics show that the average time spent on the internet per week in 2017 to be 28 hours; 3 times the figure 10 years ago. Statistics suggest that by 2020, the figures will be significantly more. For us this is an important indicator of long term sustainability.

Our revenue model targets 4 clear customer segments. These models enable us to provide solutions at profitable costs without diminishing quality. This also lays the foundation for geographical expansion to new market regions.

Presently, we have been operating with minimal financial resource. This is affecting the rate of development of the concept. Solve will help advance our work with mentorship access and opportunities for networking.

Solve provides us an opportunity for exposure and to benchmark our solution against other great solutions. We are able to get constructive feedback about our solution, and have the opportunity to be a part of the Solver team.

Funding from Solve would be helpful towards development and implementation of our platform.

For us, the key barriers to success include capacity and skilled manpower. We have gained some ground bootstrapping and engaging in discussions with prospective customers who are very keen on product. We can gain more ground with  funding to enable us build product to scale. We have completed a strategic framework and are ready to move product to its next phase of development. 

Being a part of Solve will help us obtain the best resources that we require to ensure the quality of our product meets our minimum expectations.