Find Your Way. Technovation Team: B.A.S.I.C. BALSA:

Transcription

1 Find Your Way Technovation Team: B.A.S.I.C. BALSA: Alexandra Bancos, Anjali Donthi, Audrey Whitney, Bailey Klote, Simran Sandhu - Facebook & - Twitter

2 1 Table of Contents I. Executive Summary...2 II. Company Description...3 III. Product Description...7 IV. Market Analysis...9 V. Marketing Plan...13 VI. Financial Plan & Projections...15 VII. Works Cited...17

3 2 Executive Summary With easy access to international flight and an increase in economical problems, immigration rates to the United States has surged leaving many immigrants in a new country with limited knowledge of their surroundings. The members of B.A.S.I.C. BALSA, based in Rochester, MN, have recognized this problem and decided to work towards finding a solution. Bridge, an app that provides immigrants with easy access towards multiples sources of information from where to satisfy basic living needs to thriving in the community, is the solution to this widespread problem. Bridge would be financed through app advertising and grants. Our purpose is to secure investors and launch our app in order to benefit this community of immigrants constantly coming into Rochester. We have made our app scalable to allow any city in any location to use its basic layout to benefit the immigrants in their community.

4 3 Company Description B.A.S.I.C. BALSA is a nonprofit organization of five diverse young women based in Rochester, MN. We recognize that the immigrant community has difficulties in locating resources that will allow them to thrive in their new community. We believe everyone, no matter their nationality, should have equal opportunities to better themselves and others without the lack of resources preventing their success. Our mission is to help provide immigrants with easily accessible resources to improve their quality of life in a foreign community.

5 4 Our team consists of: - Chief Executive Officer: Alexandra (Lex) Bancos is currently a 9th grader at Century High School. She is the Chief videographer for Bridge and worked on several pieces of the business plan. Alexandra has hopes of pursuing the medical field in the future. - Chief Financial Officer: Simran Sandhu is currently a 7th grader at Friedell Middle School. Simran worked on the financial aspects of the business plan for Bridge and has been apart of creating two other apps on the android app store. She has experience in coding and has been part of the Black Data Processing Associates(BDPA), a program teaching many young individuals programming languages. - Chief Technical Officer: Audrey Whitney is currently a 6th grader at Friedell Middle School. She designed and worked on large aspects of code for the app Bridge. Audrey enjoys spending her free time coding in several languages. She also enjoys coding in Minecraft as well as building worlds. - Chief Marketing Officer: Anjali Donthi is currently a 9th grader at Century High School. She drove the design and editing of the business plan. She also created several other apps, one of which is going to be used by the Rochester Public School district. Being the one of the girls on a majority male team BDPA, she has won regionals as well as competed nationally at a high school computer competition during her 8th grade year of middle school and won first place. - Chief Design Officer: Bailey Klote is currently a 6th grader at Friedell Middle School. She worked on large aspects of the code for Bridge. Bailey knows how to code in several different languages and enjoys coding in her free time. Bailey enjoys playing video games loves to look at the design aspect of the games.

6 5 - We are led by our devoted mentors who have guided and advised us throughout the development of this application: - Kris Whitney - Technical Advisor - Ginny McCright - Executive and Financial Advisor - Courtney Kramer - Marketing Advisor - Scott Klote - Entrepreneurial Advisor - Gina Whitney - Design Advisor - We are creating Bridge to help immigrants in our new community get their feet under them with easily accessible and organized information on where to attain all the necessary resources to be successful. In order to reach a bigger audience, more effectively we have chosen to provide this app at no cost. Despite this, we have many opportunities to make the money we need in order to expand this app: - Grants - Advertisements in the app - Perhaps the most to be gained from this app, however, is given by the immigrants themselves as they start giving back to the community through their jobs as they become effective citizens. - With a team mainly consisting of students with immigrant parents, many of us have experienced or heard of the hardships our parents faced when first arriving in this country looking for a better life. From lack of basic information on where to find resources to the struggles with the language, many immigrants have been unable to easily find the resources they need causing not only extra stress and hardship in their lives, but a drain on America s economy. We decided to create Bridge to turn this lose-lose situation into a win-win situation with nothing more than an accumulation of easily accessible information within reach of an immigrant s fingertips. - Our immediate goal is to use our proof-of-concept to get user feedback and create a hardened 1.0 version of this app to release to the public. Our proof-of-concept will be verified by Diversity Counsel and IMAA who we re also partnering with to release this app to a bigger audience. - Our future goal is to be able to give Diversity Counsel and IMAA ownership to the app. This would allow them to use this app as a resource for the immigrants that come to them for help and would also increase the amount of people this app impacts. Below is an overview of our goals:

7 6 Immediate Goals Get user feedback on our proof-of-concept by Diversity Counsel and IMAA Release the 1.0 version of this app to the public through partnership with Diversity Counsel and IMAA Future Goals Release the 2.0 version of this app which includes: - Word-a-day feature - Emergency alerts with warnings of danger near your area. - Adding several other resources to our app as well as expanding the app to first the other locations in MN, and then to other locations across the U.S. - Adding several other languages the app can translate to. - Updating design of our app - Expanding app availability to iphone and ios. Hand over ownership of the app to Diversity Council and Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association( IMAA)

8 7 Product Description - Our app, Bridge, is mainly focused upon help immigrants, refugees, and long/short term visitors ( medical patients). - Bridge focuses on the bottom two levels of Maslow s hierarchy of needs, which are physiological and safety needs. The categories we will mainly be focusing on are food, housing, education, jobs, community/support groups, health, and emergency services. This will in turn affect all 5 levels of the hierarchy for our users. - Our app is designed to help our users be independent and be able to perform well in their new communities.as shown in the chart above, our app has several advantages over the competition. For example, we are the only Rochester, MN based app among this topic. We are also one of the only apps that are scalable to other places, as well as having a web database which is maintained by local agencies. - Our app in currently in the proof of concept phase, and is available for free download on the Google Play Store (Android Phones). We are developing Bridge on MIT App Inventor, a free platform for app development. - The development activities we are currently working on include processing toward a beta version and eventually a version Future Features: - Word-a-Day - Translation Services - Emergency Alerts (location-based)

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10 9 Market Analysis - Our market is focused on new immigrants, refugees, and Mayo Clinic patients from out of the country arriving to the SE Minnesota area. In the current market for immigrants, there are a couple of services that are trying to help immigrants by giving information and few resources, and are thus our competitors in a broad sense. - There are many organizations that can help immigrants adjust into the new society but they are hard to locate and find. Furthermore, our app will help immigrants establish a connection with these organizations as well as providing resources based on their own personal needs. - Obviously there is a need in the market, because 428,000 of the states population is made up of immigrants and a large population are still finding difficulties when adapting to the new environment. 46.5% of immigrants in Minnesota don t have the proper education or advanced degrees. Furthermore, this is an extremely serious issue: Immigrants without the necessary resources can lead to them being exploited for cheap labor. - Organizations, and people in the community have certainly helped reduce the problem, but the issue still remains. Bridge will be able to penetrate this market in a way organizations, and people in the community cannot: it s more accessible, sometimes more useful than organizations, and more uncompromising than people in the community can be. Thus, Bridge will perform well in the current market because of its optimal features for providing helpful resources towards immigrants. While there are apps that have tried to enter this market, they don t have the optimal combination of features and simplicity that actually change the nature of the market. - For our customer research, we looked at two main factors: the characteristics and the size of our potential customer group. In creating these characteristics, we looked at our own team s characteristics, and built upon that. We feel like we are ourselves the ideal market for this app. Here is a look at the characteristics of our potential customers: - Immigrants: In order for our app to make sense, the user must have some trouble upon arriving to Rochester. A significant number of immigrants have some trouble upon arriving to their new location. About 20.8 % of the immigrants who arrive to Minnesota live under the poverty line.

11 10 - Refugees: This app is ideal for refugees who are newly arrived, they might not speak the language. 41.7% of all immigrants arriving face language barriers. - Patients of Mayo Clinic from out of Country: This app is useful for patients and their families who have come to Rochester for treatments and need help finding basic necessities to make their stay a comfortable one. - Looking at these basic characteristics, we ve described a large portion of the immigrant population. Within this population, there are several other factors that cause this population to be lacking resources to benefit themselves. - According to US Census, , The potential of our customers keeps increasing in size as bigger as we look at a bigger population: -

12 11 -In our competitor s analysis we ve researched the following apps such as RefAid, Arrived: New Immigrants, RefugeMN, and ImMigRant. Feature Bridge RefugeMN ImMigRant Arrived: US Immigration Access to key resources (health care, education, shelter etc.). Healthcare Only Emergency Situations Only Question and answer information only Links to map, website and phone See Sanctuary cities and immigration nonprofits on map only Focus on helping newcomers integrate into the area. Filterable & searchable In Rochester, MN. Scalable to other locations. Web Database maintained by local agencies App translatable to several languages Don t require registration to use app

13 12 - RefugeMN assists immigrants by providing information on emergency services and hygiene by having users register into the app. It shows videos of basic hygiene necessities such as brushing your teeth and showering and lists contacts users can contact in an emergency situation. - ImMigRant supports immigrants providing them with simple communication tools to help them face any potential medical emergency. Allows immigrants to handle medical emergencies quickly and efficiently by making use of comic strips illustrating several injury cases or emergency situations, from the simplest to the most serious.the comic strips-cartoons illustrate what has to be done in case of a medical emergency, situations of discomfort or natural disasters. - Arrived: New Immigrants is an app that helps immigrants by only providing facts, tips, and information about the category of their choice. There are several categories including Emergency, Housing, Job Assistance, and Education. Provides a location of sanctuary cities and immigration nonprofits.

14 13 Marketing Plan - There are several ways we plan on marketing our app. One marketing strategy we plan to pursue is through organizations that reach out to immigrants and refugees. We have contacted some of these organizations already including Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association ( IMAA) and Diversity Council. These organizations have agreed to use our app and promote it throughout their organization and to provide it to their communities. - As immigrants arrive to Rochester, MN many immigrants aren t prepared for certain things or have everything fully set out and this is very concerning towards their safety and their families. By reaching out to organizations and asking if they would promote and recommend our app, we could reach this prime market: it is in these beginning months that new immigrants have the highest risk of not being able to find necessary resources to assist in their safety and comfort. Similarly, we plan on reaching out to airport information booths. - Additionally, some people are concerned that these immigrants don t have smartphones. We have contacted a representative from one of the immigration organizations and they have stated that many of these immigrants do in fact have phones and it is their way of communicating. An individual who lives under the poverty line may also receive free government provided phones, previously called Obama Phones. - We plan on reaching out to well known bloggers who focus on the topic of immigration. An example of some blogs that we would reach out with include Immigration Impact. These types of blogs are very willing to work with companies, and through blog posts they can reach a huge audience of immigrants. - Furthermore, we may also try reaching out to talk shows, conferences, and podcasts that focus on parenting to further reach the greater market. We also could promote through newspaper ads. - We will also use our social media platforms: twitter, instagram, facebook, to spread our name through the community including the immigrant population.

15 14 - Financially, we are will be functioning by bootstrapping our way through the first iteration of our app. We plan on raising money through platforms such as Kickstarter and Go Fund Me as necessary. We would also consider to setting up our own fundraising organization by getting a 501(c)(3) status. - To address how we will function on a work level, each of the five team members are expected to pitch in to get our first iteration off the ground. Audrey and Bailey will continue to work through the technical aspects of the app, Anjali and Alexandra will continue to work on marketing and community outreach, and Simran will continue to work on managing the finances. - We currently are all considered co-founders, as opposed to employees. As we are still currently in the first stages of development, we are all in charge of various parts of the creation of Bridge, thus no one is considered, officially, an employee. However, in the future, we may hire several employees to help with the technical development of different features for our app. We will also consider hiring employees to coordinate our marketing and social media.

16 15 Financial Plan & Projections - We currently have roughly $100 in our GoFundMe account will be using this money for updates for our app, as well as promotions on social media and other marketing platforms. - For our estimated expenses over the next 6 years, we will need about $23,360. Our goals for these funds include updating equipment, promotion and marketing, and technical tools/platforms. - We plan to make a profit of $12,353 in the next 5 years, which we plan to make through donations, gifts, grants, and ad click revenue. See the details in our financial pro formas on the next page:

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18 17 Works Cited Hayes, Jasmeet, P. Emotion and cognition interactions in PTSD: a review of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies. Frontiers in Integrative Science. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 9 Oct Web. Minnesota Index: Immigration in Minnesota. Session Daily Story - Minnesota House of Representatives, 24 Apr. 2017, Minnesota Issues Resource Guides Immigrants in Minnesota. Immigrants in Minnesota - Minnesota Issues Resources Guides, 2017, Minnesota State Demographic Center (SDC). MN State Demographic Center, 18 Apr. 2018, mn.gov/admin/demography/. United States Census Bureau. (2016). Census Info Retrieved from: MN,US/POP645216#viewtop.