I. COMPANY OVERVIEW

ConnectEDU2.0 is a service application for helping the overseas Filipino parents monitor their child's academic performance that unlike knowing the academic performance and needs of the child personally every end of the grading period; sends reports and updates through wireless communication, depending on parents’ subscription of the service. It reaches 8.7 to 11 million Filipino overseas parents and sustainability is expected to be after one (1) year.

ConnectEDU2.0 is a program that intends to increase the parenting effectiveness of OFWs where it focuses on the academic performance of the OFWs’ child. ConnectEDU2.0 provides a diagnosis of the performance of the students with OFW parents in public schools which will be sent through alerts and updates for consistent monitoring.

Our most recent study showed that public school teachers have minimal technological activity:

Only have basic mobile phones Do not know how to upload and download Do not know how to use the features of a high-end phone (e.g. Nokia E63) Applications which they often use are:

• MS Office• MS Excel

OFW parents also face the same problem, but they are more used to using the Internet.

With this new information, we found it necessary to revise and simplify the system for the end-user. Teachers will have access to the website where they will input the academic information of the child. The website will serve as an "online class record" where the teacher inputs the assignments, quizzes, recitations and other activities of the child and grades them appropriately.

II. PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY

ConnectEDU2.0 fuses web technology and mobile technology in one easy-to-use system. It is made for teachers and parents to have an easy means to communicating the academic information of the student. Through the use of these technologies, we aim to monitor the performance of the students and increase the parenting effectiveness of the OFW parents.

There are four (4) components in the system: Computer, Internet connection, SMS gateway and a mobile phone.

The website will be accessed through a computer, which will be requiring an Internet connection. Teachers will have access to the website where they will input the academic information of the child. The website will serve as an "online class record" where the teacher inputs the assignments, quizzes, recitations and other activities of the child and grades them appropriately.

For every activity of the teacher in the website, the OFW parent will receive a text alert. Text alert system will be enabled by providing a SMS gateway for the website which will require the installation of the API of the SMS gateway in the Edu2.0 site.

III. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

A. Entry of Competitors

ConnectEDU2.0, due to its technological innovations and unique service, will be creating a whole new industry which will be catering to the needs of the OFW parents all-over the world as well as the public school teachers in the country. And since the industry will be new and there are no direct competitors, new entrants can easily compete with ConnectEDU2.0 directly and easily.

However, due to the technicality of the service and the expertise of the team, as well as the experience of the advisers in the field of mobile and web technology, we believe that we can create a barrier that can make it difficult for the new entrants to compete in the industry.

B. Threat of Substitutes

This is one of the major problems of the venture—the threat of cheaper substitutes. Since the venture is primarily a service than an actual product, and since OFWs has managed to monitor the academic performance of their child prior to the existence of ConnectEDU2.0, it would be hard for the team to persuade the OFWs to leave their current ways of monitoring their child’s academic performance and switch to the services offered by ConnectEDU2.0.

Cheaper substitutes are as follows:

1. Telephone calls2. Emails

The guardians of the OFW’s child uses these means to inform the OFW parent of the grades and other school activities of the child. Calls costs around P8.00 per minute while emails are virtually free. With the affordability of these said means, it would be hard for the venture to capture those OFWs that depends on telephone calls and/or emails to be informed of everything regarding their child’s schooling.

C. Bargaining Power of Buyers

ConnectEDU2.0’s bottom line is not profit. We are about the quality service that we can render to our OFW parents and help them increase their parenting effectiveness with regard to their child’s performance at school. The bargaining power of the OFWs is strong and they can affect the price of the service, however, there are other factors that have to be considered.

One major factor is the fee that we will be paying the teacher. This will comprise more than half of the price of the service. If the teacher requests that they be paid more, and if we find it appropriate, we will increase the price of the service. ConnectEDU2.0’s clients are not only the parents; it is also the teachers.

The service will also spread to other OFWs, not through massive advertising, but through the word-of-mouth and “word-of-mouse” by the existing OFW clients of ConnectEDU2.0. This goes to show how high the bargaining power of the buyers of the ConnectEDU2.0 service.

D. Bargaining Power of Suppliers

There will be no bargaining power from the suppliers. The service will be made available to the OFWs directly. There will be no middlemen involved in the venture. It will be the team itself who will find clients and sell the service.

E. Rivalry among the existing players

As we have mentioned, ConnectEDU2.0 will be creating a new industry and thus, there are no existing players.

F. Government

The government will also play a huge role in the venture. The whole team is planning to tie-up with public schools, through the Department of Education, to bring the service to the OFWs and make the teacher participate. If ever the Department of Education would not approve of the service of ConnectEDU2.0, we will be rendering our service to the OFW parents with children in private schools.

IV. MARKET CONTEXT

A. Presentation of Data

We have carefully analyzed three (3) markets and its users for us to have a clear and broad perspective of the feasibility of the venture. These are: OFW, Mobile and Web.

i. OFW Market

Currently, there are 11 million OFWs which comprises of 12% of the total population of the Philippines. On average, the number of OFWs grows 3.45% every 3 years.

Out of this number, 7 million are parents with children still studying, which comprises of 64% of the total number of OFWS. These figures will be a great help for us to have a conservative estimate of how many of those OFWs are we targeting to be users of the service.

We also found out that most OFWs are in the professional and service industry, has a stable job and earns a considerable amount of money. With these data, we can say that the OFW market is a feasible market where we can sell our services to.

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

OFWs sends an average of $350 dollars a month to their families, which amounts to around P16,000.00.

Their salary will be divided into the following expenses:

As you can see, OFWs allot most of their salary to their families. Also, a considerable amount is being allotted to their utilities, which include telephone bills and Internet connection.

ii. Mobile Market

In the Philippines, mobile penetration rate has reportedly reached a mark of 75% at the end of 2008 and had reached almost 80% (72 million subscribers) by March 2009 and is expected to be in a steady rise for the next few years.

Mobile phones are now the primary form of telecommunication in developing countries and they are used for communications, information and, more recently, access to a range of services from m-Banking to m-Education and m-Governance. The transformation of society by mobile telephony, and especially mobile applications, is perhaps most profound in the Philippines.1

The fact that so many people in our country lack access to other means of communication, coupled with the dramatic growth of mobile phone access through most of the developing world, provides an opportunity to reach hundreds of millions of people. The costs of mobile technology have dropped steadily, coverage has expanded and mobile phone subscriptions in our country have increased by over 500 percent since 2000.2

1 http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/resources/the-innovative-use-of-mobile-applications-in-the-philippines-lessons-for-africa2 Wireless Intelligence, 2007

iii. Internet and Web Market

YEAR Users Population % Pop. Usage Source2000 2,000,000 78,181,900 2.6 % ITU2005 7,820,000 84,174,092 9.3 % C.I.Almanac2008 14,000,000 96,061,683 14.6 % Yahoo!2009 24,000,000 97,976,603 24.5 % Nielsen

In the Philippines the Internet is growing. Although there are almost 100 Internet Service Providers in the Philippines, most of them have connections through backbones located in the United States. Internet dial-up connection charges are approximately 2 dollars hourly (or 33 dollars for up to 60 hours monthly). This fee is approximately 80% higher than similar charges in the United States. Since GNP per capita in the Philippines is only 12% of that in the United States, it is clear that access to the e-world is currently limited to the wealthier citizens and companies. In 2000 Internet users were approximately 2,000,000. In 2003 this number had increased to 3,500,000 Internet surfers.3

According to the research group BSBC Hook UAI, there were 1,925,649 Internet users in 2004 in Metro Manila belonging to the A, B and C classes, ages ranging from 13 to 30 years old, as compared to 1,885,465 in 2002, indicating a 21.3-percent increase.

The Internet café and online gaming has been the growth driver with a 38-percent share from January to June 2008, with Metro Manila registering the highest share with 41 percent, followed by Central Luzon with 17 percent. Since the Philippines has a low personal computer (PC) penetration rate estimated at less than 10 percent of the total population, the Internet café has provided access to online gaming and the Web to many Filipinos.The Internet sector is, however, well positioned for growth, with a deregulated market, strong government support for IT development, and an increasingly Internet savvy population.4 In fact, in 2009 there was a significant upturn in the country’s Internet market, with broadband access expanding rapidly. The stimulation and growth of the Internet us will, of course, depend on increasing the accessibility of Internet, greater PC penetration and the enactment by the government of appropriate legislation.

3 http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/ph4 http://www.budde.com.au/Research/Philippines-Internet-Services

B. Summary and Analysis of Data

With the information gathered and presented, we can conclude the following:

Top-Down

P 11.4 billion spent for communication to families by OFW parents annually

Bottom-Up 7 million OFW parents Average of 70 communications (texts and

calls) per year P20 average cost of communication 1 out of 5, communication is about

academics of the child (20%) Total size of Available Market:

o P1.96 billion annuallyo P5.4 million daily

The total size of available market for ConnectEDU2.0 amounts to P1.4 billion annually and P2.8 million daily. This is a good number for the venture. We aim to at least capture 3% of the market which amounts to P58.8M annually and P163,000 daily

V. BUSINESS MODEL

For every new information (e.g. new lesson, assignment has been graded), the OFW parent will receive a text alert that tells the parent to go to the website to view that information. This is made possible through an SMS Gateway. Each text sent through this gateway will cost P 2.25.

Parents will also be entitled to choose from subscription rates most convenient to them. The table below shows the payment modes with its corresponding fees.

Payment Mode Price

Monthly P 699.99

Quarterly 2,099.99

Semestral 3,499.99

Yearly 6,999.99

VI. CURRENT PARTNERS, CUSTOMERS AND PIPELINE

A. EDU20.org

EDU 2.0 is a free, web-hosted learning management system that allows anyone to create an online school in minutes. It's easy to use, comprehensive, and can be accessed from any web browser.

B. Public Schools

ConnectEDU2.0 will be initially implemented on public schools. Based on research, percentage of students in need of the program is higher in public schools than private schools.

C. Teachers

They help develop a strong connection with the parent and the child. In return, they are entitled few incentives and benefits that can be offered by the government or the parent for participation in the program. Involvement in the program entails personal satisfaction through helping develop a better means of communication for the parent and the child.

D. OFW Parents

ConnectEDU2.0 could somehow be described as a parent-centred program. They benefit most of the program. They are provided accurate and factual information regarding their child’s academic status. They are consistently updated about their child’s performance. They are given personal enrichment through multimedia experience—simply better than asking their child’s academics through the telephone.

VII. SERVICE EVOLUTION

A. Phase I: “Link”

Through the major partnership with Edu20.org, the service will be hosted on the Edu20.org

website. Teachers will have access to the website where they will input the academic information of the child. The website will serve as an "online class record" where the teacher inputs the assignments, quizzes, recitations and other activities of the child and grades them appropriately. For every new information (e.g. new lesson, assignment has been graded), the OFW parent will receive a text alert that tells the parent to go to the website to view that information.

B. Phase II: “Upgrade”

After a year of operation and partnership with Edu20.org, we plan to create our own website where we can host our service as well as our database. However, due to the technicality of the service, it will still be a text-based alert system.

The purpose for this independence is that we want to have our own website which is specifically designed to cater to the needs of the OFW parent and the purpose of the service. That website will have simplified contents which will be easier for the teachers to navigate around.

C. Phase III: “Innovate”

The last phase, and the vision, of the service is a mobile version of the service. The teacher monitors and inputs the information regarding the student and informs the OFW parent using a mobile application. The new application will be largely multimedia. The mobile application will be hosted in a high-end phone and the teacher can use that phone to take videos and photos of the student and send it directly to the OFW parent.

On the part of the OFW parents, they will no longer just receive a text alert. They will receive a full diagnostic report on a certain schedule, either weekly or monthly. Frequency

will depend on the choice of the OFW parent. The report will comprise of the actual performance of the child, the remarks of the teacher and suggested actions.

VIII. MILESTONES AND TIMELINE

ConnectEDU2.0 will undergo several changes in the coming year since first launch. We are planning to tie-up with major institutions, particularly telecommunications companies and SMS gateway providers. We would also launch the prototype of the service in one of the public schools in Quezon City. After successful operations, we will seek the help of the local government of Quezon City.

We are also planning to invest in our own website, which means that we would no longer continue our partnership with Edu20.org. Though this step would be risky, we deem it appropriate since we would want a website that will be specifically designed for our service. We are expecting that with that action, we would gain more long-term subscribers and investors.

The last milestone for the service will be the innovation to mobile application. From text-based alert system, the service will be a full, multimedia diagnostic of the performance of the child which will be sent on a weekly basis.

IX. FINANCIAL DETAILS

ConnectEDU2.0 will have to consider certain expenses upon initial implementation. These costs are at first funded by initial investors in the person of team members, interested advisers, relatives and friends. The table below shows estimated values costs breakdown.

Costs BreakdownSalary of Teacher 300.00SMS Gateway 115.00Other Expenses (30%) 124.50Total Expenses 539.50

Mark-up (30%) 161.85

Total Cost 701.35

Table 1

The salary of the teacher is first taken into consideration since they play significant role in implementing the program. Their salary is estimated based on their valuable participation in the program. Along with teachers’ salary is the payment for SMS Gateway which greatly helps in the operation of the program. Detailed computation of SMS Gateway Cost is shown on Table 2. There is also an estimated value of other expenses which was projected for possible future expenses. The mark-up is set on 30% of the total expenses for future add-ons and gains.

Computation of SMS Gateway2.25/text

10 teachers x 5 students = 50 accountsapprox 10 texts a month/account = 500 text a month from all users500 texts x 2.25 = P1125 a month

Table 2

Tables 3, 4, 5 and 6 show the flow of Income derived from varied number of villages. Each table includes number of villages, population in each, estimated number of clients which is given a rate of 5% and projected subscription mode selected which amounts to P 699.00 a month. Along with sales are cost of services to be deducted to determine profit.

Table 3

Table 4

GK CASH FLOW (INCOME)Number of Villages 1Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients (5%) 25Monthly Subscription Fee 699.99Sales 17,499.75

Cost of ServicesSalary of Teacher (300x25) 7,500.00SMS Gateway Fee (115x25) 2,875.00Other expenses 3,100.00Total Expenses 13,475.00

Profits 4,024.75

Number of Villages 10Total population 5,000Est. Number of Clients (5%) 250Monthly Subscription Fee 699.99Sales 174,997.50

Cost of ServicesSalary of Teacher (300x25) 75,000.00SMS Gateway Fee (115x25) 28,750.00Other expenses 31,000.00Total Expenses 134,750.00

Profits 40,247.50

Number of Villages 100Total population 50,000Est. Number of Clients (5%) 2,500Monthly Subscription Fee 699.99Sales 1,749,975.00

Cost of ServicesSalary of Teacher (300x25) 750,000.00SMS Gateway Fee (115x25) 287,500.00Other expenses 310,000.00

Total Expenses 1,347,500.00

Profits 402,475.00Table 5

Number of Villages 1,700Total population 850,000Est. Number of Clients (5%) 42,500Monthly Subscription Fee 699.99

Sales 29,749,575.00

Cost of ServicesSalary of Teacher (300x25) 12,750,000.00SMS Gateway Fee (115x25) 4,887,500.00Other expenses 5,270,000.00

Total Expenses 22,907,500.00

Profits 6,842,075.00Table 6

Profits and Expenses

Projections on profits and expenses vary depending on the number of villages the program would be implemented to. The graph illustrates the values of profit together with its corresponding expenses incurred on a particular number of villages. The greater the number of villages, the higher the profit gained and expenses incurred. There is also a projection of the monthly profit which was formulatedfrom projection on each account, as shown in Table 3.

PROFITSProfit/account 160.99Number of Accounts 50.00Number of Months 1.00Total Profits 8,049.50

Table 7

Detailed values of profit together with its corresponding expenses incurred on a particular number of villages are listed on Tables 8 and 9. The greater the number of villages, the higher the profit gained and expenses incurred.

GK CASHFLOW PER MONTH (PROFITS)Number of Villages 1Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Profit from GK 4,024.75

Number of Villages 10Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Profit from GK 40,247.50

Number of Villages 100Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Profit from GK 402,475.00

Number of Villages 1,700Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Profit from GK 6,842,075.00

GK CASHFLOW PER MONTH (EXPENSES)Number of Villages 1Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Expenses from GK 13,487.50

Number of Villages 10Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Expenses from GK 134,875.00

Number of Villages 100Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Expenses from GK 1,348,750.00

Number of Villages 1,700Population/village 500Est. Number of Clients 0.05Expenses from GK 22,928,750.00

Table 8

Table 9

X. CONNECTEDU2.0 TEAM

Ateneo de Manila UniversityCORPUZ, RaizaSY, Honey

Miriam CollegeOLARTE, MindaSANTOS, Lemon

University of the PhilippinesAZUR, JobelleRIGODON, Sarah