Hone

A mobile application that learners can find someone to study with for free in a particular subject, skillset or learning program. Discussion forums for asking and answering questions and leadership boards for tracking interaction and use. A hub to accelerate learning were learners can also find tutors and coaches to hone their skills. Blending education with gamified technology to make learning and connecting fun. 

Learners are more lonely than ever, with the rise of social media and popularity of online courses - more connected but more disengaged and disconnected in real time. Our goal is to bring real life interaction back - by providing a digital platform that encourages students to meet with one another in person - for the purpose of studying, coaching, and tutoring. The app also has digital elements like discussion forum and the ability to connect via video so students are able to connect physically and digitally.

As our state has many learning institutions and programs, the solution is catered to students and learners. We have currently collaborated with an accelerated learning program and spoken with the University of Rhode Island academic enhancement center and talent development program, both who are waiting for the application to be completed.

It is a mobile application in which the learner can search and look for other students to study with for a particular subject or skill set, and will allow learners to negotiate the asking price of a coach or tutor listed. This allows for opportunities to still be created if both parties have reached a mutually beneficial agreement. The gamification aspect has been reported to be a big solution to remembering to utilize the application long term as well as bringing the familiarity of game play, rewarding, and leadership boards.

Our application is a change of process that makes the solution more effective for our audience. Many different institutions and businesses are trying to connect with the incoming workforce, while also having a certain standard of education and training that our public schools have tested behind in. While we would like to first start with the over 18 age group, we realize and confirmed that video games and their rewards have been integrated into most of the learners' lives. We also know that with so much poverty and equality questions, this application would bring an equal platform to those who have technology access and those who do not.

Our technology will be the Hone mobile application with its ability to schedule virtual or in person sessions, creating free and negotiable opportunities for both the learner and the teacher or coach.

According to surveys and interviews in our community, we were able to see that though it was very important for the learners to be able to access the following three levels of our profile models: free peer to peer studying, access to tutors, as well as coaches who could provide new levels of motivation.

We also know that the rise of technology has fostered quicker access to opportunities but also has increased loneliness. Our application will allow learners to progress their skills and knowledge from different vantage points. The ability to have social interaction while improving the lives of those connecting in a beneficial but with the option to counter offer for paid time that would normally seem out of reach allows the opportunity of growth to not be lost in cost.

We are currently not serving any customers directly as we are set to launch in September.  In the meantime, we have held multiple events to conduct focus groups and interviews and have posted hundreds of motivational, inspirational, and interview videos' posts through social networking. Our goal is to reach 1000 students in one year once the app is launched. We would like to connect and serve 100 thousand students in 5 years. 

Our goal is to create a model that will allow the education sector to open up to new perspectives that may have been previously lost based on lack of funds or opportunities. This model can be made available for membership or friend of levels to allow those who want to help support the growth of higher and continued education.

We would like to be able to expand to Ethiopia, though internet access costs have expanded our thought processes and timelines.

As we are currently mainly self funded, expenses such as technical expenses for sprint based growth has been a barrier we are working to overcome. While we have set out to overcome the in house development barrier, we currently are lacking someone with the gamification background we are hoping to add to produce the action/reward based on use connections in our users.

We currently have one of our owners learning full stack application development to have better control in development.

Our company is currently an L3C.

We currently are a 2 person operation, both owners, and have contracted out a majority of the initial application build. We have influencers and writers ready to volunteer, as well as community members ready to utilize our application.

The founder of the application is a veteran who was deployed during his undergraduate degree and returned to a new cohort of students. In his masters of accounting program, he realized working full time for the State of Rhode Island's Auditor General left him little time to meet during traditional study times. Having worked as a tutor and previously with a tutor, he realized that the the current resources barrier must cause many people to just give up. After speaking to his partner, she joined to add her communication studies degree, with a focus of social media, as well as her experiences having been born in RI, educated in private, home, video, and public schools during her parents entrepreneurial endeavors. Already working for herself in nonprofit communication assistance, with a background of volunteerism, they were able to harness their skills and backgrounds to go into the community and collect data and feedback to create the current model of Hone.

We were currently working independently but have interviewed with our local state university's academic enhancement center and center for equity and diversity, and the computer science job training institute who is also building the application with student assistance, who want to test the live application at the top levels before moving forward to partnership.

Our key customers are learners and developers. The Hone Application will allow the users to generate levels of accomplishment on the leaderboards, question and answer forums, and different levels of peer and mentor style resources.

Through the employment model, we aim to have opportunities for people to coach or tutor full time.

When independent individuals utilize our platform, we will be a part of selling the service that is appropriately being offered. We will also allow enterprise levels of membership and opportunities for partnering and advertising.

We will also seek research and development grants to make sure we do not negatively affect our users with advancing technologies.

Solve will helps us to validate the idea and create partnerships with established and up and coming educational and technological firms. The app is designed with students and educators in mind, however, our model has not been proven yet .Once the app is launched, we want to measure the impact of the app and re-design the product if necessary. We also would like to create partnerships with established and up and coming educational and technological firms. We believe Solve will be able to provide us the tools we need to advance our work and bring our solution to the masses. 

We want to partner with local tutoring centers and coaching centers to list their tutors and coaches on our platform.  In addition to that, we want to partner with the tutoring centers at colleges to provide tutoring for students that are enrolled in that college - Colleges centers will have another channel to offer their services by using our digital platform. We would also like to partner with test prep companies to provide their services on our platform and help students enrolled in their programs to find other students studying for the same standardized test.  Unused spaces and coffee shops are also other places we want to partner with to accelerate out solution.