UpTOSpeed

UpTOSpeed is designed to help older adults (65+) take advantage of technology to improve their lives. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been glaring issues plaguing seniors as a result of their lower digital competency, most notably social isolation and access to fundamental resources like virtual healthcare. With the permanent transition to online or blended programming in many senior-heavy sectors, most notably the retirement and healthcare industry, this issue will continue to persist post-pandemic. UpTOSpeed’s instant, on-demand technical support and education services will help seniors learn how to participate in the growing digital society and economy, as well as utilize current and future technological innovations to significantly improve countless aspects of their lives. Further, the data we gather from assisting seniors will be employed by companies to improve the accessibility of their online platforms and technological devices to those of lower digital competency.

UpTOSpeed aims to address the digital divide among older adults (65+). In North America, older adults are the fastest growing population of Internet users, with usage increasing by 59% in the US from 2000 to 2019 and 58% in Canada from 2000 to 2018. Despite this dramatic increase in usage, nearly 50% need help using their devices. The negative repercussions of senior’s lower digital competency were revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where a shift to using online platforms for many aspects of daily life left many seniors socially isolated and often unable to address their essential needs. With technology continuing to penetrate fundamental parts of daily life and online platforms becoming commonplace for many industries, seniors' lack of tech-savviness will continue to further inhibit their quality of life and ability to interact with the online economy and society as a whole. UpTOSpeed hopes to provide affordable, on-demand technical support and education services to this demographic so they can take advantage of current and future technological innovations to improve their lives.

UpTOSpeed is a marketplace for universal technical support and education tailored for older adults. Incorporating findings from the nationally featured non-profit TechServe, older adults will be provided with the expertise and resources necessary to become proficient in navigating the ever-increasingly digital world. UpTOSpeed’s instant video and written tutorials, timely telephone and video chat technical support, and appointment based 1-on-1 group educational lessons will allow older adults to quickly learn commonly used online platforms and technology when most convenient for them. In terms of timely support, every senior’s request for technical support will be sent to a sea of independent contractors so older adults can be provided support almost instantaneously. To ensure the accessibility of our services, older adults will be able to request and receive our services both via our telephone support line and website. UpTOSpeed will first begin as a B2B service provided to residents of the retirement industry and then expand into the healthcare industry as well as a B2C service for the entirety of the older adult population. The data accumulated from helping this demographic will then be provided to companies to help them improve the accessibility of their digital platform and devices for seniors.

UpTOSpeed’s services currently target the older adult population, those 65+ and above, in Canada and the United States. Due to the long-standing ageism associated with seniors using technology, widely distributed, senior friendly resources to help them stay up to date with current technology were never established. The negative implications of a lack of older adult digital literacy education practices become abundantly evident with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, where seniors were left socially isolated and lacking many essential resources, like healthcare, groceries, and laundry. Further, with continual incorporation of technology and online platforms into key facets of daily life, the lower digital competency among older demographics will continue to limit their ability to participate in the growing digital society. 

At UpTOSpeed, we are working to address the digital divide among this demographic in order to transform many aspects of seniors’ lives. In order to ensure the first iteration of UpTOSpeed took into account the specific technology issues of seniors, we examined the data from our brother non-profit TechServe, who has helped over 1600 seniors with their technology issues, as well as scientific literature examining senior technology usage patterns. Currently, we are beginning pilot studies with two retirement home communities, as well as allowing seniors from TechServe and Baycrest’s Senior Advisory Panel to test the product, in order to ensure the solution is optimized for older adults’ technology needs. Ultimately, we hope to create a solution that provides seniors with the accessible, on-demand support and education services they need to improve their lives using technology as well as restore their deserved prominence within society.

The problem we are solving, our solution, and our target population are directly in line with the challenge and the particular dimension we selected. The digital divide among older adults prevents one of the largest demographic groups from interacting with the digital economy. Our solution UpTOSpeed is dedicated to the digital inclusion of older adults in the growing online society, including the digital economy. Lastly, older adults aged 65+ are one of the most disadvantaged populations in regards to possessing the necessary digital literacy skills and age-friendly resources required to interact with the digital economy.

We are currently in the pilot stage of development, as we have booked 1-month pilot studies in communities with two seniors home providers for mid and late June respectively. The first pilot will include 20 seniors from two homes while the second pilot will include 25 seniors from one home. Additionally, we are providing UpTOSpeed to seniors from TechServe and Baycrest’s Senior Advisory Panel in order to establish a funnel for continual optimization of our solution.

We currently follow a B2B business model, where we start as a third party provider for the retirement industry. We then plan to expand to support the healthcare industry, provide B2C services, and provide data and consultation to businesses to improve the digital inclusivity of their online platforms in that order. This is subject to change depending on pilot project findings.

UpTOSpeed is the first instant, on-demand technical support tailored to the digital literacy levels of older adults. We accomplish this by having technical support requests from clients sent out to a sea of independent contractors (UpTOSpeed Tech Experts) that have relevant training interacting with older adults. By remunerating the contractors based on the amount of time they spend addressing support calls, coupled with a 30 minute time limit per call, we incentivize them to take many calls as quickly as possible. This leads to almost instantaneous response times to senior support requests. 

According to the cumulative findings from relevant scientific literature, our non-profit arm TechServe, and our proof of concept research, the retirement and healthcare industry have experienced a huge increase in demand for technical support among their resident and/or patient population as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the permanent transition to online or blended programming for many fundamental operational activities, these issues will continue to persist post-pandemic, leading many in the retirement and healthcare industry to consider hiring IT managers for each of their locations. With our current pricing models, UpTOSpeed provides a cost effective alternative that is much more responsive to the technology needs of older adult populations.

Lastly, many companies have limited senior interaction with their online platforms. With UpTOSpeed’s data collection practices, we will be able to provide businesses the data insights to catalyze the optimization of their online platforms for the inclusion of older adults.

We are currently serving 45 seniors through our pilot projects with two retirement home networks. Following the pilot studies, we will work to establish partnerships with these retirement home chains, providing access to UpTOSpeed’s services to over 1000 seniors. We will then work to leverage senior networks of TechServe and our existing partners to expand our services throughout the Canadian retirement industry. With this current plan, our one year goal is to acquire approximately 4000 seniors through B2B partnerships in the retirement industry. During the following 4 years, we would then expand to support the Canadian and US retirement and healthcare industry as well as provide a B2C offering for the general older adult population. We project to serve over one million seniors by year 5 of operation.

The key performance indicators we are using to measure the progress towards our impact goals are technical issue solving rate, seniors’ perceived improvement in comfortability using the relevant technology, net promoter score, retention rate and user growth rate. The technical issue solving rate and senior’s perceived improvement in comfortability using technology will measure the effectiveness of UpTOSpeed’s services. Net promoter score and retention rate will provide us with an indication of our solution’s perceived quality and value among our senior clientele. Lastly, user growth rate will allow us to measure the effectiveness of our expansion plan.

2 Full time

1 Part time

30 Independent Contractors

Our team is well positioned to deliver UpTOSpeed, as we have the relevant experience to fulfill our short and long term vision. Daniel Marrello, our CEO, is one of Canada’s leading experts in the field of older adult digital literacy. Before co-founding UpTOSpeed, he started the non-profit TechServe (formerly TechServeTO), which helps seniors combat social isolation by teaching them online platforms. TechServe has helped over 1600 seniors, established a team of 175+ volunteers, and been featured in numerous media sources. Further, TechServe has partnered with large corporations like Google and Manulife to expand outreach as well as post-secondary institutions to develop evidence-based practices for senior digital literacy education. Daniel’s understanding of senior digital literacy issues, coupled with existing partnerships, ensures UpTOSpeed’s design will be effective and widely distributable. Manik Chaudhery, our CTO, possesses thorough data science and full stack development experience through his previous roles at Interac and Ecobee. His expertise will ensure the technological aspects of our solution function successfully and provide us with meaningful data insights we can employ to optimize the effectiveness of UpTOSpeed.

To take into account the technology needs of older adults in UpTOSpeed’s initial design and implementation, we examined TechServe’s senior population and scientific literature as well as conducted proof of concept research with relevant parties. Further, we are conducting pilots with two retirement home chains and receiving input and ideas from a sample of TechServe and Baycrest Senior Advisory Panel older adult product testers in order to further optimize future iterations of UpTOSpeed.

UpTOSpeed’s co-founders, Daniel Marrello & Manik Chaudhery, are children of Italian and Indian immigrants respectively. Further, the founding team came up with the idea together after they both supported their own grandparents with learning technology. As previously mentioned, Daniel has a track record of promoting equity and inclusion through his work at the nationally featured non-profit TechServe. Similarly, Manik has also shown a commitment to these values through his work with the Livelihood Project, which connects communities with refugee families for resettlement and integration support.

In terms of current goals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we wish to have a 50:50 ratio of male to female employees as well as have our team composed of at least 25% individuals aged 55+ by the end of our second year of operation. We believe equal gender representation and perspective will benefit the quality of our solution. We will achieve this goal by partnering with organizations that support women in technology fields. As well, we believe that the involvement of older age groups in company decision making processes and providing support to other seniors will be critical in the success of our solution. Therefore, we will look to target older members of firms in the IT and other tech industries during the recruitment process to achieve this goal.

We are applying to MIT Solve due to the program’s invaluable resources and networks that will allow us to overcome potential barriers and achieve our long term vision for UpTOSpeed. The grant and investment funding, access to numerous in-kind resources, and mentorship from the Solve program will help us overcome the financial barrier associated with early startup budgetary constraints and provide us the insight to expedite our solution’s growth in a cost-effective manner. In regards to addressing the cultural barrier of ageism associated with senior technology use, exposure to Solve’s network of industry leaders, media, and conferences will further the spread of our developing campaign to break down negative senior stereotypes. Equally as important, this exposure will assist in the expansion of UpTOSpeed’s services beyond our existing Canadian network into the relevant American ecosystems. Lastly, Solve’s expansive network, strategic advice, as well as monitoring and evaluation support will provide us opportunities for industry relationship development and further strategy refinement, which will help us establish numerous B2B partnerships and effectively capture potential B2C senior customer segments.

Currently, we require partnership or support finding product-market fit, funding to accelerate growth, learning how to effectively pitch to investors, establishing a channel to receive regular legal support, and expanding the distribution of UpTOSpeed’s services. Although we have data collection practices in place to regularly track and optimize our solution based on customer feedback, receiving input and support from experts with greater experience in the retirement, healthcare, and digital literacy ecosystem could expedite the establishment of product-market fit. As well, access to funding opportunities and insight from partners who have pitched digital inclusion related solutions to investors would help us ensure we have sufficient monetary resources to support our short and long term goals. Currently, we receive limited legal resources from the Next36 startup accelerator program, such as legal document templates tailored for Canadian federal and provincial law. Partnerships resulting in access to more regular legal support would ensure our documents and policies are up to date and include relevant US and international laws. Lastly, the establishment of partnerships with American and international organizations would help us rapidly increase the user base of our solution. 

We would like to partner with the following organizations, MIT initiatives/faculty, and Solve Members:

• HP: As shown by their numerous initiatives to provide digital literacy training and resources to disadvantaged populations, HP is a global leader in digital inclusion. Partnership with HP would provide us with the expertise, resources, and exposure to optimize and expand our services to support seniors across the US and potentially the globe.

• Eric Yuan: Based on data from our non-profit arm TechServe and UpTOSpeed proof of concept research, Zoom assistance is overwhelmingly the most common technical support issue and desired learning topic among seniors today. Partnership with Eric and the Zoom team would help us develop effective, widely distributable Zoom educational materials tailored to the lower digital literacy levels of seniors.

• MIT Open Learning: With their dedication to employing digital technologies to transform teaching and learning practices, coupled with their collaborative, innovative, and research-based values, MIT Open learning would be a great partner to assist us in the development of evidence-based practices for senior digital literacy education.

• MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE): The team at IDE have thorough experience helping companies understand the societal impact of digital transformation and adapt to conduct business effectively within the digital economy. Working with the MIT IDE team would help us employ the insights we collect from UpTOSpeed to help businesses improve the accessibility of their platform for older adult engagement.

We are qualified for the Digital Inclusion Challenge segment of this prize, as the basis of our solution is advancing the inclusion of a disadvantaged population in the growing digital society. Older adults are one of the most underserved populations in terms of access to digital literacy resources, even in the US. UpTOSpeed will provide them with the on-demand, senior friendly technical support and education services they need to take advantage of the countless resources and economic opportunities available online. Ultimately, our services will equip them with digital literacy skills that will drastically improve their lives.

In terms of how we would employ the prize funding, we would expand our team, conduct larger pilot studies, and obtain further legal support. Although we have experienced success attracting pilot project partnerships, we believe hiring two sales and marketing interns would significantly improve our likelihood of establishing B2B partnerships and capturing senior customer segments. As well, hiring full stack development and user experience design interns would help us expedite development of our in-call monitoring system and matchmaking algorithm as well as speed up incorporation of customer feedback into later iterations of UpTOSpeed. With the increased funding from the prize, we would also conduct pilot studies with a larger sample of seniors to establish a more robust database of feedback data that will speed up the optimization of our solution. Lastly, we would invest in regular legal advice and document review to ensure our policies and partnership contracts are fair and minimize risk.