Students dropping out of college

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UPDATE

We are excited to be part of the Atala PRISM Pioneer Program! the link will provide a vehicle for mass use of Atala PRISM as we plan to DID students while we help them find their purpose! Thanks, Tony Rose for the guidance!

We are looking for a developer to help us connect verified credentials into an AI mentor algorithm. Please read the proposal and contact me if you see a **fit in skills and passion for the mission!**josec@socialabfoundation.org 

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Our mission is to enable youth in their journey to achieve their greatest potential through education and mentorship. Our promise is to guide students as they seek to pursue a career that will allow them to showcase their talents. This is to be accomplished by developing Emma, a digital mentor chatbot that aspires to change the narrative of career advice, an on-demand mentorship tool for students, improving their employability scope and helping the economy move upward while being inclusive in the truest sense. Últimately, through the value, offers students will be led to living a productive and sustainable life.

Aggravated by the pandemic, the current state of students dropping out of college is alarming. The founders of the SociaLab Foundation understand that these trends will create massive negative societal, educational, and economic impacts that will result in empty seats at universities and a workforce missing the tools needed to succeed in today's competitive environment. Studies have shown that when people are connected to a sense of purpose, their chances of success exponentially increase. Furthermore, we know that teenagers value having choices, hence, we've come to the conclusion that for many young people, a digital mentor will be a choice they can access anytime, anywhere.

A few facts:

· At-risk young adults who had a mentor are more likely to have aspired to go to college and to be in college now. Students who had mentor 76% vs Students who had no mentor 56%

· Having had a mentor is correlated with engaging in more positive activities for at-risk youth. On average, the number of students who had a mentor doubled the participation rate in an extracurricular activity at school, including a leadership position in a club, sports team, school council, or another group; it also doubled the regular volunteering in their community.

· A college graduate earns at least $1 million more over their lifetimes than high school dropouts.

Source: The Mentoring Effect, by The National Mentoring Partnership

The SociaLab Foundation is deeply concerned about the traditional educational system which continues preparing students for the last 385 years (americanboard.org) generating professionals that are not necessarily equipped with the tools they need to succeed. On the other hand, many of today's employers are looking for critical and analytical thinking; problem-solving; creativity; communication; teamwork and collaboration; time management; autonomous, capable workers. These are the exact skills set we want our students to acquire before entering today's workplace if allocated to the right career path that will keep them motivated to achieve their dreams.

We envision Emma helping students identify their purpose, remembering previous interactions so it can better guide them, and even challenging them to think out of the box based on their own skills set. Presenting career paths and plans for consideration, offering curated content about scholarships, careers, and different occupations within an environment of choice. With the appropriate design, digital environment, and easy navigation, our chatbot will track study progress and milestones using Cardano, keep track of work, experiences, and decisions to later transform them into digital badges that can be used by hiring companies to match skills.

Emma is currently in the development stages for an MVP, we like to think more of it as a true MLP, a Minimum Lovable Product, built as a conversational chatbot using the NLU engine. Our bot will use the popular RIASEC scale to gauge students' interest and build a digital persona developed by American psychologist John L. Holland and will eventually recommend different career paths and options. The same scale/data is used by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.

While we are very much aware that technology alone cannot solve all-purpose findings, it will help to reduce the gap and create a groundswell of new opportunities. Mentorship is such a critical stage of their lives, just before they start to think about which career to pursue, will translate into empowered professionals ready to improve their future and those within their own communities.

In order to fully realize our mission of helping every student succeed to their highest potential and with the ability to record their skill certifications and badges, will make them easily discoverable by potential employers, will also allow colleges and universities to easily manage student records on Cardano and for employers, on the other hand, to discover talent faster and cut the timeline and cost of credential verification significantly.

The economy has pivoted from traditional jobs, however, the way we think of education and skills are yet to keep up with the revolution. Managing our talent capital and being part of a community that can help us build upon our vision, will help us scale and transform the future of work from its foundation thanks to Emma.

How might the value of solving this problem be quantified and/or measured?

When trying to solve the issue around students dropping out of college, providing a digital mentor chatbot, on-demand, will improve their employability scope and help the economy move upward while being inclusive in the truest sense.

In the US alone, dropout rates are 45% or even higher in other countries. The reasons vary greatly, financial reasons on top of the list, poor connection or understanding of a potential career choice, and lack of guidance to decide for the right career path. 58% of enrolled students graduate within 6 years.

The biggest cost of being a college dropout is the high probability of unemployment. There are socio-economic consequences involved. College dropouts or those with no education tend to place a burden on the government and social services and find it difficult to survive in the labor market. It also leads to low self-esteem and low confidence issues. The earning potential declines.

SociaLab Foundation (SLF) has an extensive reputation and network to implement a go-to-market for schools and universities, starting in the US and Latin America.

SLF will be self-sustainable through the implementation of SLF utility tokens. Institutions will need to hold a certain amount of tokens in an account to enable the creation of new certificates. SLF tokens will then record academic assets. SLF will leverage the Cardano smart contract functionality and make it available for institutions and any other future participants. Our system will be looking to incorporate Atala Prism as soon as it will become available for public use.

RESEARCH

Repository of images from focus groups implemented in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, United States, and Puerto Rico

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BI0DIuTP-dGgQVkzFyAXwoFBimYGcBX0?usp=sharing

Survey report and conclusion attached

We had to pause the research due to the pandemic and difficulty to join schools, however, the results were re-confirmed last October 2021 in a virtual session in High School in Cutler Bay Senior High, in partnership with Junior Achievement Miami where Jose Caceres seats on the board. Image reference here.

Prototyping and Testing (all reports in Spanish, attached)

Repository of 3 weeks of testing in Argentina with high school students.

Executive Summary (attached)

Week 1: Can a digital mentor help students find their purpose? (attached)

Week 2: How can we design a home screen that is simple and intuitive to use? (attached)

Week 3: How can we design challenges in the chat to help find my purpose? (attached)

SUCCESS DEFINITION

Success in 3 months

Connect a verification credentials system, into our AI mentor algorithm using Atala PRISM.

Success in 12 months. (not included in fund7)

The full promise of guiding a student through an AI mentoring service on-demand in their career selection, and recording & validating all the credentials in the process.

COST BREAKDOWN

Deliverable #1 AI algorithm last-mile development (Emma MVP)- $ 4,000 

Deliverable #2 Controlled tests and focus groups sessions to validate MVP user experience- $ 500

Deliverable #3 Design of flexible career path framework, including data sets - $ 2,500 

Deliverable #4 Connect verified credentials into our AI algorithm using Atala PRISM- $12,000

(3 months of an advanced developer, at a 4K rate per month, we are hiring!)

Total $19,000

THE TEAM:

The founders of the SociaLab Foundation hold +50 years of combined experience in education and technology industries, assisting, mentoring, and guiding youth to successfully complete high school, becoming a crucial component in their educational development, as they enter a pathway that leads to a college education and professional career.

Jose Caceres, CEO SociaLab Foundation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-caceres/

Jose Caceres is a corporate executive at SAP Latin America, with over 20 years of experience, Mr. Caceres supports the Global Corporate Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility office at SAP. Currently leads a team that works with students from high school to university and reaches 120K lives directly with regional programs, working with more than 60 Non-Profit Organizations across the region. He is the founder of the award-winning Latin Code Week and Co-Founder of SAP Social Inno Marathon programs.

Lourdes Rosales, Strategic Alliances SociaLab Foundation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lourdes-rosales-06450223/

Lourdes Rosales is a corporate executive with +19 years of experience in partnerships, program management, strategy, business planning, marketing, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and communications in the technology and construction industry. My work is based on the ability to bring people together, build trust with internal and external stakeholders with a strong focus on purpose, reputation, and thought leadership. Proud civil engineer, mom, always striving to achieve excellent results, open to exploring unknown areas for learning, proactive, forward-thinking, problem solver, lean execution, and impact. Honored for co-founding www.socialabfoundation.org and creating an impact on people's lives, our future leaders.

Juan Casimiro, Business Development SociaLab Foundation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juancasimiro/

For more than 35 years, Casimiro has dedicated his life to youth empowerment. His ability to engage and connect with youth has allowed him to bring out the best in young people. Casimiro has reached more than 500,000 young people through the entities founded. Casimiro is the Founder and CEO of BIZNOVATOR, a youth entrepreneurship, and innovation training company.

Dhairya Pujara, CIO SociaLab Foundation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhairyapujara/

Dhairya Pujara is the Founder CEO at Ycenter - Dhairya has designed and delivered programs for Social Innovation, Human-centered design, and Entrepreneurship for universities and organizations in 25+ countries in the last 7 years across 4 continents. Dhairya's work has been featured in Philadelphia Business Journal, Entrepreneur magazine, BBC radio Business hour, books are written by professors from Babson, Penn State University, and has been invited as a speaker and mentor at SXSW 2018, Social Enterprise World Forum, Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum, Presidential Precinct among others. He is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global shaper hub in Philadelphia and a board member at Social Enterprise Alliance. He was awarded an O1A visa by the US government, a visa reserved for individuals of extraordinary ability, for his work in the field of Social Innovation and Humanitarian Engineering.

Rohaan Goswami, CTO SociaLab Foundation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohaangoswami/

COO and Director of Product at Ycenter. He leads the engineering and design teams and is the chief architect of Ycenter's global experiential learning platform EPIC. Rohaan is frequently invited as a visiting faculty for Social Innovation, Human-Centered Design, and Sustainable Technology domains across top universities including IIT-Bombay, Cisco incubator Program, Indian School of Design & Innovation, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, ISB-Hyderabad, and the University of Nairobi. He has also served as a design consultant & strategic advisor for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and impact organizations like Abbott Global Healthcare, Shell Foundation, US Department of Commerce, and Giza Systems.