SkillSwap

SkillSwap revolutionizes the typical educational system by making it entirely free, based on the concept of exchanging knowledge in the most optimal and algorithmic manner.

My app is addressing the issue of affordability of quality education, one of the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Right now I am focused on adapting the application in my country, Georgia, which is especially affected by this problem. 

To better elaborate on the suitability of this solution in my community, let me introduce a few facts about the Georgian education system. After graduating high school, students have to write national entrance exams in three or more subjects. The score of these exams is the sole criteria for acceptance into any Georgian university. Thus, as you might imagine, pupils have a lot at stake. Due to this, those students who can afford private tutors do not hesitate to use that resource, while others have no other choice but to do their best with the free resources at their hands.

It is obvious that private teachers are expensive and based on my country’s income statistics, very few students can afford one. 80% of children whose family income is more than 373$/mo are trained by a private teacher, and the remaining 20% are not. At the same time 30% of children whose family income is less than 150$ are trained by a private teacher, and the remaining 70% are not. According to the data of 2018 (before the pandemic), 634 thousand people had an income of less than 373$/mo, from 1.13 million residents, which in itself means that the majority of the population of Georgia and mainly young people do not have the opportunity to get the desired education outside of school. It is obvious that the education level in Georgia unfortunately is progressing very slowly, that is also confirmed by the following research (https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Combined_Executive_Summaries_PISA_2018.pdf ). In the survey of 80 countries, Georgia took 72nd place based on the level of education of 15-year-olds in the country. Which itself derives from Georgia’s unpleasant economic situation.

It is apparent that the scale of the educational problem is enormous and needs a solution. Without education and professionals it is almost impossible to maintain quality life, let alone improve it. The example of my own country’s quality education problem derived from the poor economic situation allowed me to notice the unfair division between students from high and low income families. The whole concept behind my idea is bolstered by those statistics and is expected to highly impact the current situation. My dream is to go global and play my part in solving one of the biggest challenges of our generation.

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SkillSwap allows users to learn, without the need of spending a penny. The idea is based on a very rarely used tradition of two friends exchanging knowledge. Let’s say we have two students, one is strong in math while the other knows English better. It is highly likely that they might help each other to prepare for exams. However, while observing my peers I noticed that the exchange is often limited to that, and very few take it to another level, meaning without age limitations, two humans exchanging knowledge in two different disciplines. Each eager to learn the skill that the other one possesses. Therefore, their payment would be returning knowledge in another form. 

One of the biggest obstacles of this principle is finding the right partner, who wishes to learn what you know and can teach you what you want to learn. That’s the problem my solution solves. After registering on SKillSwap a user is prompted to enter their current skills. Their expertise is assessed with specifically designed tests. Next, they also mark their professional interests and turn on the search function. This activates an algorithm which finds them the best possible match - another user with whom their knowledge and interests intersect. The app connects these two users and allows them to interact in a built-in online chat. However, the knowledge exchange will most probably happen via online video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Google Meet. My future plans include implementing such a designated tool into the app itself. 

In the future development of the app, introducing a scoring system is being considered. A user could get paid in scores for teaching, and pay scores to request a lesson from someone else. This way there would be no need to find pairs, there could be a chain.

My solution is a platform which gives the users an opportunity to learn. Users can be of any age, any ethnicity, located anywhere. The only requirement for a user is a passion for learning something new, and a knowledge about any discipline that they can share.

Currently my main target audience is Georgian students who are in their final year of high school. This specific community is in their period of preparing for national entrance exams, which decide their university placement. As I mentioned earlier, in Georgia very few families have enough means to afford private teachers and not struggle to make the ends meet. However, for example, there are a lot of students who don’t need to prepare in math but need to prepare in English and vice versa. The application would accommodate them by giving them a platform to connect and learn from each other, without spending money. I believe this would dramatically improve their lives, because they would get the desired knowledge helping them  pursue their dreams.

After, or if possible while, helping the above-mentioned population of Georgia, my goal is to help anyone, of any age, who wants to learn something but does not have finances to do so. Due to the pandemic, humans have adapted to the internet, and many try to learn from online courses, YouTube tutorials, articles, etc. However, it is evident that this way it is challenging to stay motivated. Fortunately, it is in human nature to stay motivated when you have someone next to you, excited along with you. SkillSwap would be a perfect choice for them, since apart from getting desired knowledge, they would be interacting with someone equally excited about learning! They could have what they initially wanted, a teacher! whose payment is not money, but knowledge. I believe that introducing people to this new quality way of learning would have a huge impact on humanity’s future.

In Georgia, at the end of high school students write national entrance exams, which decide your university placement. My elder sister who had to go through this period gave me some valuable insight into it. I learned from her and her peers how, unfortunately, the system works - students born in rich families can afford private tutors and get excellent results, while students from lower income families struggle a lot more. Being a highschool student about to enter that period and having prior knowledge about the problem through the experience of my sister, I felt well-positioned to explore this issue in more depth. 

As a student at Vladimir Komarov Tbilisi School of Physics and Mathematics N199, I am quite strong in STEM subjects. However, my knowledge in the Georgian language subject, for example, could use some improvement. That means I will have to prepare with a teacher to earn my desired score on the exam. While keeping this issue in mind and given my proficient knowledge in C++ and physics, I decided to teach these disciplines myself, to help students with financial issues. I opened a club at my school for physics and programming and saw with my own eyes how many students were eager to learn! None of them missed a single homework! I realized that while online courses are a great resource, having someone to study along with you, is a much stronger motivation. So, I made it my mission to think of a solution for low income families. As a result, I came up with an idea of swapping knowledge within the community. 

For about a year, I have been teaching myself how to write a mobile application. I managed to create a prototype in Thunkable (an online platform which enables users to write mobile applications with blocks) which does its job! It connects two users who can teach and learn from each other in two different disciplines, for example mathematics and Georgian language. While working on the app, I have also been working on improving the chain of knowledge exchanges, and preparing for several grants programs, which would allow me to write a more powerful application which could withhold more users, and to hire discipline professionals who would help me divide the subjects into several parts and levels for better matching results and correct expectations. My prototype already splits disciplines into difficulties, based on 12 classes in the Georgian education system. However, I believe it should be done in another, more optimal way, since my future goal is to make the application global. 

I have already reached out to my peers, who agreed to test the prototype. I have had a lot of positive feedback, which boosts my confidence that this is, in fact, the solution that can influence the education culture. My future plans include improving the application and starting testing it in one of the Georgian high schools, to get valuable feedback, as well as to get ready for the much bigger number of users.

The idea for this application came to my mind after thoroughly observing the faults of our education system during my elder sister’s high school years. I realized that all these students struggling to prepare for the national exams would be the perfect target for my solution. Having done this initial research through my sister’s peers, I moved on to observing my generation, that is about to enter the same phase and become the main target audience. Thus, while building a prototype I already had an idea of what customer needs to address. Meanwhile, I have never stopped asking other potential users for advice, and this really helped me to come up with the chain of knowledge exchanges, which I intend to implement in the nearest future.

I have also volunteered to teach at my school and opened a club. That gave me more insight into what motivates the students to learn and how knowledge exchange concept works efficiently between them. I have also asked my pupils for advice and suggestions for the app. Their feedback had a huge impact on the formation of the first hand idea. It led me to a conclusion that for certain levels of disciplines, it is necessary to create general outlines to give users clear expectations. Therefore, I am working on the idea of hiring professionals to help me write detailed curriculums.

In creating the design of the prototype I have involved several people with different backgrounds and digital literacy - students, kids, adults and elderly - in total 20 people. The feedback was used to make favorable UI/UX. However, I definitely plan on improving it. As for the development of the solution, more than 10 people have registered to test the released prototype on the first announcement of it.

This is a novelty that lies in the principle of mutual learning, the culture of which is not established not only in Georgia, but also in the world.

From ancient times, there has been a precept: teacher is a teacher and student is a student. This has led to the fact that today there is no culture of mutual learning. Two ‘students’ rarely turn to teaching each other. Instead, everyone is looking for a teacher, and in most cases miss out on the opportunity that their community’s knowledge and motivation represents. Our application is the initiator and implementer of the principle of swapping skills. We believe that this is currently the most realistic way to strengthen the existing education system.

We anticipate SkillSwap to drastically change the education market as we know it today. In the best case scenario, quality education will become affordable to anyone. We believe that after the release of the application into use, it will cause a lot of interest from our community, since there are a lot of people looking for new ways to learn. This will hopefully result in the attention of huge companies who are investing in education, in order to solve this global challenge. If we manage to secure them as our investors, we will be able to go global very quickly and very productively. 

My main impact goal for the next year is to successfully introduce SkillSwap into the community of graduating high schoolers, and try to abolish the imbalance in the quality education availability between students from high and low income families. In order to achieve this, I have set smaller missions for me and my team to accomplish.

First, I need to bust the myth that only highly skilled professionals with a degree are capable of teaching. To achieve that I will encourage people to take the subject tests, which will give them confidence in case of passing. I am also going to write more specific suggested guidelines for the different levels and sessions of disciplines (the draft of which is already created by my team and I). For example: Math level 4, lesson 33: triangle properties, their heights, their area and perimeter; suggested exercises: 1),2),3). Such suggested guidelines would simplify a job for a teacher figure.

On top of that, my plan is to increase the probability of matchings, so that we can give the opportunity of learning to as many customers as possible. Currently, SkillSwap matches two users who can both teach and learn from each other. However, to increase the odds of a match, we decided that it is better to implement the chain of exchanges using a points system, as mentioned in my previous essays. For example, upon creation of the account a user will have a certain initial balance of points which will allow them to request a lesson (every lesson would have a certain cost in terms of points). However, to earn points and continue learning the user will have to teach someone some discipline back.

I believe that by accomplishing all of the above mentioned goals, the app will start getting a lot of attention and making a huge impact on society. This simple but smart chainlike education system would help users see how much difference there is between online resources and SkillSwap, which would help raise interest in mutual learning on a global scope.

SkillSwap is a mobile application at the moment. However, adapting it to the web is one of our future plans. A tool used for building the prototype is a no code platform called Thunkable. The whole logic is built using code blocks. The app also heavily relies on Firebase, utilizing it as the main data storage for different user related information, such as chat messages, indicated interests and skills, matches with other users, etc. 

Another essential component of SkillSwap is its algorithm which finds the most optimal pairings of two users who can swap their knowledge between each other about certain subjects. In the future versions of the application we are planning on advancing the algorithm to not only find two user matches, but a chain of users that all can complement each other’s skills and interests. This will increase the chances of successful and fruitful matches, resulting in higher satisfaction.

At the moment SkillSwap doesn’t provide users with a space to actually exchange knowledge. It is only responsible for making successful matches and connecting the users with each other. However, we would like to implement a virtual space through our platform, such as VR classrooms, after the app has gained enough visibility and enough funding for such addition in the software.

The application hasn’t been launched yet, however, I have developed a prototype and published it on the app store. At the moment around 10 people, mostly my friends and peers, who are also the main target audience, are testing it. I am determined to finish the product and start beta testing at several high schools in about 6 months. Estimated time for beta testing, analyzing the results and fixing any bugs is 2-3 months. After that I am going to launch it in my country, where I expect roughly 10K users in the first 3 months after the launch. This number was calculated from the statistical analysis of the target population - 40k high school students writing national entrance exams in Georgia every year. However, I expect the number of users to grow significantly, since in Georgia, with a 4 million population, a big majority of adolescents doesn’t have access to a free and quality way of learning outside of schools. Thus, I strongly believe that after hearing about my platform, they will definitely want to give it a try!

I have been working on writing and developing the idea myself for about a year now. However, I still have a long way to go and sadly, I lack finances. I believe that I will need to hire more developers to strengthen my application, since it is not yet ready to take on a lot of users. I also need a budget to hire professionals who will help me divide the disciplines into levels, and provide a more professional curriculum for those levels. 

In addition, marketing also does not come cheap, however, I believe that Facebook and Instagram advertisements will be a way to go in Georgia, since these are the two main social platforms mainly used by the target audience. 

Furthermore, the culture of mutual learning is not well known in Georgia, everyone is searching for a teacher and they miss the opportunity that their community represents. My challenge is to change that, and to implement the ideology of exchanging knowledge. 

Although the above-mentioned issues are challenging ones, I believe that with hard work I can manage to get going within a year. I think breaking the stereotype that you can’t get a quality education without money and government established centers, will not take a lot of time, since with the right marketing I can impact the community’s view, and help them see the opportunities they’ve been missing. As for the financial issues, I believe that with my persistent work, I will be able to gather the needed funds!

We are not working with any organizations at this moment, but plan to do so in the future.

Business Model

1)  Value Propositions: 

SkillSwap offers a unique platform to exchange knowledge and address a problem of economic inequality revealing new educational opportunities for people with a lack of financial resources.

2) Customer Segments:

Anyone, any age, any ethnicity, who has access to the internet, motivation and knowledge to teach, and desire to learn, but doesn’t have financial resources.

3) Channels

Since SkillSwap is an online platform, our distribution channel is currently Play Store. However, we intend on using the App Store, Galaxy Apps, and others to reach our client. As for the marketing, our main channels will be Instagram and Facebook at first.

4) Customer relationships:

SkillSwap is going to create a community of engaged and motivated learners. By maintaining effective customer support the app will keep existing users satisfied with quality service and rely on online advertisements and word of mouth to attract new customers.

5) Revenue streams:

SkillSwap’s two main sources of income would be the premium subscription and in-app advertisements. Premium subscriptions can offer additional features, such as bonus points for teaching a lesson( for example, 20% more than a regular member would get). In-app advertisements could be displayed in collaboration with educational institutions or companies.

6) Key resources: The key resources include the application, development team, and the community of users. Investing into development and maintenance of the app along with marketing for steady customer acquisition is important for app’s success.

7) Cost structure:

Employer salaries, marketing, development of software, maintenance of online platforms.

In order to launch my application into use, I will need funding, which I am expecting to get from sustained donations, grants and investors. In Georgia we have a lot of grants programs which fund the startups. I am going to present my application to them once they announce the start, probably in february. I am also looking for investors, who will follow me on the journey to solving the problem of education. My startup will also be open to donations, from the people who are interested in solving this global challenge, and believe that SkillSwap is the way to go.

In the long run, my plan is to keep the application free, however, add a premium option in order to be able to cover the expected expenses. It would still be free to learn, if you teach back, however, since the app would use points as a currency, the premium members would get lets say 20% more points for teaching a lesson, than users without premium. This way, the application would have a revenue stream, whilst still giving the opportunity for everyone to get the education that they wanted, without using money. Another source of income would be advertisements, which would be placed in the application. 

These sources of income should provide enough finances to maintain the application and even help it evolve further! This would give us the opportunity to go global!