-
-
#WeStudyTogehter - A Peer-to-Peer Learning Community Platform
-
COVID-19 impact on education - affecting 1.5 billion learners
-
Low success rate for pure online university courses
-
From a non-engaging old model to an engaging new one
-
Increasing engagement to prevent student knowledge gaps and churn
-
Students can look for tutors within their community
-
Select a match based on machine learning and availability
-
Setup a session and connect virtually
-
Evaluate the tutor and give points that can be exchanged for extra curriculum achievements
-
#WeStudyTogether increases student retention leading to more income, funds, reputation, student value and benefits for society
-
Minimum valuable product test in April 2020 (three weeks) at westudytogether.org
-
Reached 2,000 users, worked with 150 volunteers and helped more than 50 students
-
A solution for the more than 4,000 universities in Europe
-
Easily scalable to B2B learning, employee education and as software as an extension on existing e-learning or learning management systems
-
Our solution was selected as winner in the EUvsVirus Hackathon with over 2,000 participants - and received a cash prize from a private VC
-
Please reach out to info@westudytogether.org for more information
#WeStudyTogether - A peer-to-peer learning community platform
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. The power of education extends beyond the development of skills we need for economic success. It can contribute to nation-building and reconciliation. ~ N. Mandela
The problem
- 19 million tertiary students in EU-28 are currently unable to have (physical) engagement due to COVID-19
- Expected high negative impact on engagement levels and student retention
- Research shows that student retention largely depends on three factors of engagement
- More dropouts will negatively influence universities as they lose income, lose reputation and lose funds
- Next to this, drop outs are causing economical damage and lead to long term not seized opportunities due to early knowledge and education gaps
Resources: Attrition in higher education, NSSE Indiana University Survey report I, NSSE Indiana University Survey report II
The solution
#WeStudyTogether is an online peer-to-peer learning community that helps educational institutions to engage remotely with students and to prevent student knowledge gaps and attrition.
The platform allows students and universities to:
- Increase the quality of students' interactions
- Boost students' sense of belonging to the university
- Provide a safe and supporting learning environment
- Contribute to the university's culture
- Provide opportunities to socialize and have fun
- Help students feel comfortable about seeking help
- Help students prove they mastered a subject - teaching shows mastery
- Develop employable skills of students (coaching, teamwork, ...)
- Allow students to differentiate themselves by building extra curriculum
- Enable students to provide another strong indicator of their academic achievement next to their GPAs
- Provide employers a reliable evaluation of the graduates on the subjects they mastered
PROTOTYPE - Check it out!
The Architecture
Input - Hackathon - Output
Before Hackathon
We started this project two weeks ago when we saw that there was a need for students to interact with one another and help each other out. After launching the initial website in Dutch (now westudytogether.org - translated to explain to the others) we had already more than 2000 visitors, 150 volunteers and we helped over 50 students. And so the Hackathon begun...
During Hackathon
- Friday 24/4: expanded team with very talented and diverse members, team brainstorm and blueprint next steps
- Saturday 25/4 - morning: found new mentors after initial mentor dropped out and got blessed with Anna (pitch) and Katerina (overall)
- Saturday 25/4 - day: pivot initial idea to shared economy and scaled solution, integration gamification, creation visualization (prototype) and late-night feedback sessions
- Sunday 26/04 - morning: incorporated feedback, pivoted idea again, made final proposal and assessment feasibility
- Sunday 26/04 - day: draft pitch, two final mentor sessions, creation of final pitch, story board and video
Now
A platform to help educational institutions engage remotely with students and build an online peer-to-peer learning community to prevent student knowledge gaps and attrition.
Solution's impact to the crisis
- Prevent attrition of students causing loss of funds, reputation and tuition fees for universities
- Digitalize peer-to-peer assistance learning with an engaging factor
- Keep the "university community" engaged and stay connected around a common topic of education
The necessities to continue
- Prototype: translate model into real prototype ready for A/B testing and being able to assess user experience - need for engineer (front- and backend development
- Competitive and business analysis: research on the current market dynamics using: Porter’s 5 forces, business canvas model, SWOT analysis
- Route to market: market research educational institutions and student, grow network associated universities (crucial as product is B2B2C or WeStudyTogether-to-university-to-students)
- Financial assessment: explore different revenue models and feasibility:
- Payment per registered student by university
- Full-year subscriptions
- Software licensing for private usage within domain of the university
- Freemium model for course takers (first private session free)
- Revenue model (commission based) on earning tutor (if not free)
Timeline to market
- When technical resources available we would need around 4 weeks to turn the idea in a workable product
- Next to this we will have to tackle the network of universities to have their buy-in and spread it across their students
- We expect to have it on the market before the European examination period when the product will be the most valuable
- It gives us afterwards the summer vacation to incorporate feedback and come up with a final product
- Final product wil be ready by the start of school year 2020 - 2021
The value after the crisis
- Make education more inclusive, more engaging and personalized to prevent attrition of students
- Promote digital peer-to-peer learning to all to decrease pressure on teachers and democratize private tutoring
- Corona is expected to come back multiple times - and it will still take a considerable period of time before we will go back to normal
- Education is a right - also for those in remote areas - the tool allows universities to acquire new students without geographical / physical limitations
- The platform will allow those who cannot attend classes physically due to financial reasons or the fact they combine it with other activities (student job, job, top sport, ...) to still be part of the community
- Regardless of where we are born, we should have access to education offered across the world and 'hack' our way out
The long term vision
Scale: plan of a bigger digitalisation of higher education, existing of three elements:
- 1. Existing product: a platform to help educational institutions engage remotely with students and build an online community of peer-to-peer learning to prevent student knowledge gaps and attrition
- 2. Small private online courses in educational institution context: professors and teaching assistants can engage close with students in 1-to-small group sessions - moreover they can participate in activities that are facilitated realtime by real people. More resources mean their work can be scrutinised and credentialled with more confidence. With the small number of students, the individual learning process can be emphasized, evaluating their growth (Li, 2016)
- 3. Massive private online courses in educational institution context: courses can be taught by professors - can be pre-recorded sessions or live sessions, allowing students to be part of educational programs across the globe without being there physically (global acquisition).
Tha Hackathon Team
Except two members, the team had never met before, here is a little bit about us:
- Jeroen (Belgium) - Background in sales, marketing and B2B educational program management at Google
- Miher (Belgium) - Background in sales at Google and finance at venture capital firm
- Lupo (Italy) - Translation from "idea/sales" into user experience, visualization and design
- Ebru (Turkey) - Educational researcher, higher education, self-regulated learning, creative and productive thinking
- Iago (Spain) - Started LMS from scratch in early 2000s with 6.000 users, sr. Software Engineer, digital architect
- Mark (Canada) - Contributor of critical thinking and a new vision closer to market
team-c23-WeStudyTogether t_westudytogether_jtg94
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.