Millennials Speak

Politics is not inclusive enough for youth in developing countries , decision makers often make decisions about young people without young people, leading to a lot of political apathy and helplessness amongst the youth. 

We've created a platform called Tubonge Waskie  Swahili for "we speak they listen" that will unify the voices of the youth.This platform will be a direct link between politicians and the youth with no interference from the media 

We intend to build a database of youth in each country we operate in, this will allow us to communicate with youth i.e share different governments  agenda with them. Gain invaluable feedback on the issues and needs that they have as key data to inform politicians agenda. It will also allow for us to  shape the narrative in which youth are engaged and promote acceptability and cohesiveness of governments developmental agenda.

There lies a divide , a chasm, between political leadership, their ideologies and political agenda and what the youth want, believe and expect from their leaders. As well as a disconnect among the youth to be involved in the political conversations and need for engagement. This  dichotomy necessitates an intervention through the platform millennials speak. Youth who are at institutional levels are left vulnerable to political manipulation and the vices of political malpractice trickle down to the lower institutional levels i.e. Patriarchy, corruption, apathy and patronage. The youth are left without a light post, a guide through which to navigate these political waters. In Africa over 70% of the population is youth and the biggest impediment to development and is the corruption and poor leadership we have in Africa. Take Kenya as an example , 70% of the population lies below the age of 35 and with that in mind they are in adequately represented at decision making levels. For there to be an inclusive and developing society we must have proper public participation channels , ours embraces technology like never before. 

To adequately provide socio-economic solutions to our African society we decided to promote direct democracy among the youth populace  in Africa through amplifying their voices and bargaining a place for them in the decision making table. 70% of Africa's population is mainly the youth. Therefore, curving out sustainable political decisions will not only guarantee them a living today but also a brighter future tomorrow. To us, the youth represents the bridge between the miseries of today and the hope that lies in the future. Mahatma Gandhi reiterated the true path to social change by insisting on influencing mental & behavioural transformation in the current generation. In order to understand their needs we have carried out 4 public participation events engaging over 1000 youth across churches social halls and universities. With minimal marketing we have established that the youth do not want to be left out, they want to be involved. So we created an online platform to link their needs and unify their responses to decision makers in a data driven way 

We've created a platform called Tubonge Waskie  Swahili for "we speak they listen" that will unify the voices of the youth giving them a clear purpose and oneness of mind to address political issues in their regions. This platform will be a direct link between politicians and the youth with no interference from the media 

There service 

How it works. (Kenya as case stud)

1. We begin by mapping out all the regions within the country, within the regions you can see all the elected public officials 

2. Youth can also see the cabinet 

3. Youth can send messages directly to their leaders, which are analysed  for more accurate data representation

4. Youth can add ideas that they feel will improve service delivery

5. They can also, vote, comment and share their ideas and interactions with the platform

6. We can get both qualitative and quantitative feedback through our sms short-code for public participation and polls on the platform.

7. Youth will be able to access content that is exclusive and unbiased as it does not come form the media directly form politicians. 

We intend to build  the largest most robust data base of youth in the world, this will allow us to communicate with youth i.e share different governments  agenda with them. Gain invaluable feedback on the issues and needs that they have as key data to inform politicians agenda. It will also allow for us to  shape the narrative in which youth are engaged and promote acceptability and cohesiveness of governments developmental agenda. Thank you for your consideration.

Our platform is very innovative, it creates an avenue for decision makers to connect with the people the serve, take instagram twitter and facebook for example, they all have the profiles or pages of the decision makers along side all other pages of opinion leaders and ordinary contributors. What makes us different is that we only deal with the verified users so its more filtered and authentic content. Youth can create content like any other social media site, we have integrated sms on to the platform and created filtration systems so filter through the information and analyse the data that we receive from the youth. The sms platform using a dedicated short code allows the end user to send information that is relevant to their decision makers and that information is analysed in real time at the same time it is allows for instant feedback connecting the two. 

Our platform utilises various technologies such as research and media sharing tools that have been integrated into the system, they aren’t necessarily new the way they are being used on this platform is what is unique. 

Media - we’ve integrated  WhatsApp sharing , facebook instagram and twitter on the platform so that way anyone who comes and creates content on our site can share it and ganner support for it online

Research- We’ve built in filters to help us analyse the data we get through sms and on the online platform/ and google analytics 

communications - we can send messages via email and sms to the people on the platform and receive feedback via the same means. 

information - you can post ideas and view your representatives with interactive features. 

Our theory of change is simple, by creating a platform where youth can speak in a unified voice. Our activities include driving conversation on our online platform about development politics and governance. By getting people to talk about their leaders in manner that is organised and productive we also get to build a collective consciousness about social issues making people more aware of the roles and responsibilities of their leaders. This will lead to better public participation and consequently better allocation of resources to need specific areas as opposed to leaders simply guessing what people want. We conducted a pilot study in Kenya, where the government has narrowed down its key deliverables under the big 4 agenda, which are Affordable housing, Manufacturing, Universal health care and Food security for all. This agenda though good, is not well know to the youth. we asked young people what the Big 4 agenda was and how they felt they could participate. Some of the responses were shocking to say the least. “How does the big 4 agenda impact the youth in the future” , “Has the government considered the youth in the big four agenda? Are they really benefiting from it?” were among some of the key response, showing that they do not know what it is and felt excluded. Our platform will act as a conduit where youth can participate in the formation of government agenda financial inclusivity as well as the equitable allocation of resources. 

Right now we are serving 300 people with our platform, which are our pilot set. Since it is an online platform, infused with sms technology the potential is quite untapped due to resource and capacity constrains. In one year we should be able to reach 2 million people by certain the necessary content that is interactive and feeds of current affairs. In 5 years we should be at 10 million users on the platform from Kenya alone. Our Growth can be cataclysmic with the right support.

Our goals for the next one year are: to reach youth from all 47 counties in Kenya, engage them on issues that pertain to development politics and governance. Get youth to meaningfully engage their leaders and move their contributions to tangible action points. We intend to collect data on youth and their various opinions/sentiments and issues regarding leadership and development. These insights will prove invaluable at the policy level and will shape the way decision makers think and act towards the youth.

in the next 5 years we plan on having a presence in at least 3 countries, those are Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. From which we should have a robust data base of youth who engage with the content that is produced on our platform and contribute data that is aggregated and actionable. 

We will have a 3 pronged approach to achieving this goal, 1. Building capacity in Big data analysis. 2. Media , that is content creation and management, 3. communications , by providing access to channels through which these two seriously isolated parties can talk to each other , that is the decision makers and the youth , offers avenues for better leadership and financial inclusion. 

Our biggest barriers are capacity based. We have created the platform that connects decision makers and the youth but not may people know about it. We have piloted it and established both a need and a problem, that our solution addresses. 

We would need to build an application for both android and iOS which would cost us 10,000$ to do incorporating key technologies such as the ability to filter through large sums of data and share content that is interactive. We would also need data analysts to help in the reporting of this data.  legacy we would need to have strict data protection guidelines and terms of use in order to build trust with the youth. If we are able to raise 100,000$ we would easily be able to market the site create content and build capacity for Big data analytics and get to over 10 million users in a year.

Resource : we have partnered with another tech company by giving them shares in the company millennials speak, they will help us build capacity to implement the big data analytics and build an ios and android app

- we will also charge county governments and politicians to use our platform in order to communicate and package their messages to the youth as a powerful campaigning tool.

- we plan on engaging lawyers to draft up terms of engagement and familiarise ourselves with data protection rules os that we can be compliant.

- We plan on raising money from investors in order to help market the platform and run the program more sustainably. 

- By collecting data form youth we can also act as a bridged for consumer insights and market research to corporates. 

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3 full- time  people 

5 partime 

2 contractors

I am best positioned to deliver this solution simply because it is close to my heart. Leadership and entrepreneurship are two things that I was born to do. I am 22 years old and the problems of this continent pain me because they all reverberate along poor mindset. I was president of my student council in high school and and that experience opened my eyes to who can really change the world , a few people with the right attitude, the passion for change and good leadership. I graduated top of my school with 6A* and 4's and received a scholarship to study law at the prestigious starthmore law school in Kenya. 

Im not going to lie and say that my team boasts of the best of the best or the people with the highest skill set. What i will tell you is that we are the most driven, passionate and dedicated team that ever existed. From day 1 we haven't take a salary myself included, any money raised has been going to building the platform and piloting it. We have literally boot strapped  from our parents and friends and made the most of limited resources.

We have engaged politicians and youth with our own resources simply because we believe even as young as we are that we have not inherited this land from our forefathers but we have borrowed it from our children.

We work with Echo network Africa - to facilitate a program on the participation of women in STEM education on our platform. We are able to provide information about stem careers and drive conversation about uptake of STEM in women.

Vijana Amkeni Kenya - we partnered with them to also drive conversation around youth participation in politics 

Siasa Place - we partnered to conduct public participation together and through our online platform.

We offer value to two demographics

 1. the Decision makers : 

- Able to offer then access to the youth population in the country through our platform 

- Help in refining their youth Agenda's 

- Help promote transparency and accountability 

- Bridge the gap between their thinking and what actually happens on the grounds in the grass roots, 

- Make their ideas more acceptable and in crease their popularity or help them campaign

2. Youth 

- Provide an interactive platform where they can access first hand information on developmental agendas

- Get to feel the impact of their opinions and the contributions that they make actually get recognized and used by policy and decision makers 

- Get to express their pain points clearly 

We use a fee for service model - where we charge decision makers to access data that we curate to their specific areas of influence or demographics. We charge for communications as a package to talk to the youth and package content specific to their needs. We charge also to create media content and share that with targeted population our services range form Data analytics to communications and media management.

We simply want to build our Capacity to deliver our solution. We are currently undergoing the 4th industrial revolution, with IT , AI and machine learning taking the forefront of modern day operations. We believe with your help we will be able to utilise these technologies including big data to revolutionaries the leadership and public participation space.  

We would be able to build our capacity and raise money, expand our operations into different developing democracies and eventually ensure equitable and fair allocation of resources so that the people at the bottom of the pyramid who are the majority benefit.

By incorporating AI and machine learning we can predict voting patterns amongst the youth, get insight into potential hot spots for trouble and tension build up and advise decision makers on the necessary interventions to take.

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MIT - We believe that public participation is necessary and should be data driven, by partnering with the institute we would be able to get the relevant data scientists and engineers to build the algorithms and code needed to analyse the data of millions of youth across different developing democracies.

IBM - We would be able to have a presence in multiple countries in order to accelerate our impact and build capacity to our innovation especially with AI and machine learning. 

Our solution fits into this category perfectly, we want to not only understand what millennials want but represent that information credibly to decision makers. We would like to us AI to generate this data, by programming this tech to learn from our users we can find out what they want from decision makers, what they don't want. What they expect and whether or not these expectations are being met and if so to what extent. An AI powered platform will also allow us to conduct sentiment analysis on the probabilities of success of different policies and initiatives by both Government and public sector. Developing countries are prone to political instability, AI will help us predict these instabilities and potentially create awareness amongst relevant parties to provide the necessary interventions, helping to prevent both post election violence and inequitable allocation of resources.

By using our platform groups which didn't have a voice will have one, youth , women , persons with disabilities and those who live in poverty will be able to access our platform through online means and through sms where their needs can be represented to their decision makers and timely interventions conducted. E pluribus unum "out of many one" when these previously isolated groups being to speak in one voice they can voice concerns in the hundred of thousands if not millions about specific issues like affordable health care and housing , water and electricity shortages. These ideas when well presented to relevant decision makers will spark global interest simply because the solutions have come form the people themselves and not been guessed by some policy consultancy who consulted the internet.  

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We want to not only understand what millennials want but represent that information credibly to decision makers. We would like to us AI to generate this data, by programming this tech to learn from our users we can find out what they want from decision makers, what they don't want. What they expect and whether or not these expectations are being met and if so to what extent. An AI powered platform will also allow us to conduct sentiment analysis on the probabilities of success of different policies and initiatives by both Government and public sector. Developing countries are prone to political instability, AI will help us predict these instabilities and potentially create awareness amongst relevant parties to provide the necessary interventions, helping to prevent both post election violence and inequitable allocation of resources. We would also adhere to all data protection laws in order to use this data as responsibly as possible. This means we will have a well articulated terms and conditions of use.

We would advance our solution by marketing it to all demographics and ensuring that there is inclusivity in our platform. By creating content for all ages and ensure equitable dispensation of information to different need groups. We would also use the prize to analyse data and reach decision makers with timely and actionable data. We would ensure that everybody knows about our solution and that we get representative response form people of all social backgrounds and classes.

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