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Schoolink

Schoolink

What Is Schoolink?

Schoolink is a digital assistant device that connects a school community together. Schoolink aims to replace the ancient idea of schools needing a dedicated Public Address (PA) system through new digital assistant devices that can simply do more and are small enough to fit on the educator’s desk. These smart devices function the same way that many current digital assistants function, but with a specific focus on educational settings.

The Problem

As classrooms advance into the classrooms of the future, every aspect of traditional education will need to be re-evaluated. Currently, public address systems are expensive to repair, create unnecessary interruptions, and are very limited in their features. Digital assistant devices such as Apple HomePod, Google Nest, and Amazon Echo are made with home users in mind, which leaves many features for educators missing. School bell systems are also limiting as they cannot be adapted to allow for staggered rings only in certain classrooms. These devices can be combined into a single smart device that would fit in the classroom of the future.

Silent Announcement

Meet The Solution - Schoolink!

Schoolink is the natural evolution of the digital assistant that many of us have in our homes but focused on skills that an educator would need in their school. It has the functionality to answer questions, solve math problems, set timers, and do other tasks which teachers often use digital assistants for. Where the product excels in the educational setting are through specific features that matter to educators and administrators.

Your New Teaching Assistant

Schoolink gives teachers the ability to answer any question without needing to open a laptop or mobile device. If a student asks a question which the educator does not know (because let’s be honest, we can’t know everything), the educator can simply ask Schoolink for the answer. Educators can use this functionality to encourage student exploration as students are often interested in digital assistants and would be excited to ask it a question. Just like other digital assistants, Schoolink can set timers through voice commands, pick a random number, and control smart devices such as lights and compatible projectors through the sound of the educator’s voice. A digital school calendar can be pushed to all devices so that all staff members are informed of events for the day.

Public Address System Functionality

Schoolink offers an alternative to traditional public address systems. These systems require a lot of physical wiring and often require large systems located in school offices. These systems take up space, produce heat, and are expensive to replace. Schoolink devices can pair with each other to create a seamless wireless system with public address functionality. School announcements are always disruptive to lessons, even when the announcement itself isn’t time sensitive. Schoolink devices offer the ability to send “silent announcements” which do not disturb the classroom. The announcement will appear on the screen of Schoolink and an LED indicator light will turn on to notify the teacher that an announcement has been sent. Schoolink also allows educators to send messages directly to another classroom without needing to do so from the main public address system unit that is normally kept in the school office. Overall, Schoolink aims to improve communication between classrooms and administration in educational settings while also trying to be less disruptive to the important learning process occurring in the classroom.

Bell Schedules – For The 21st Century Classroom

No longer do schools need to have a single bell schedule that controls the flow of the entire school. As evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, staggered starts and dismissals were necessary to keep students safe. Furthermore, some classes can benefit from having longer blocks which would cause confusion and disruption through the school-wide bell. Schoolink offers the ability for each device to be programmed to have an individual bell schedule or be connected to a single bell schedule.

Safety

Schoolink products have added safeguards in place to make them safer to use in the classroom setting. Each device can pair with an educator’s phone or smart watch. Through this function, it can use Bluetooth proximity to determine if the educator is in the classroom. If an educator is no longer in the classroom, the Schoolink device will automatically turn off the listening feature to ensure that students are not able to access or use the device. Age-restrictive features are also available to ensure answers given are appropriate for the grade in which the device is kept.

In the event of a lockdown or hold-and-secure emergency, Schoolink allows educators to communicate with each other silently through the device. This is especially important for instances where a message needs to be communicated immediately. If necessary, the communication mode can also be deactivated to ensure student safety during these events. Through the camera on the device, first responders can be given access to video feeds from the device to determine safety risks.

Educational Technology

Target Market

Our target market focuses on educators and education administrators across all levels of education. These are our target users and those who have the decision power to implement technological change in their school communities. We aim to convince schools using traditional analog public address systems to convert to our solution.

Market Analysis

Schoolink would fall under the educational technology industry as it is created solely for use in educational settings and can improve student learning by minimizing school administrative distractions. According to GlobeNewswire (2022), the global educational technology market is expected to grow to $283 billion by 2028. Virtual assistants continue to rise as their market is projected to increase by $4.12 billion between 2021-2025 (PR Newswire, 2022). Overall, this shows a strong projection for educational technologies and specifically Schoolink. The education industry is also utilizing more educational technologies through learning, and schools are allocating more of their budget for these technologies after how important they were during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

holoniq_edtechspending

Source: HolonIQ, 2022

Some other reasons for market growth across both the educational technology industry and digital assistant industry include the following...

  • Enhanced education curriculums requiring more educational technology usage
  • Increased student accessibility to technology
  • Increased reliance on distanced education after the COVID-19 pandemic
  • More flipped/mixed classrooms
  • Maturity of digital assistant technology
digital_assistant_market_growth

Source: Technavio, 2021

Schoolink

Competitors

apple_logo

Apple HomePod

A digital assistant for homes featuring Siri.

View Apple's Website
alexa_blue_logo

Amazon Echo

A digital assistant for homes featuring Alexa.

View Amazon's Website
nest_blue_logo

Google Nest

A digital assistant for homes featuring Google.

View Google's Website
qnex_blue_logo

Qnex

High-end electronic P.A. systems for small and large educational institutions.

View Qnex's Website

As three of these competitors are part of the "Big Five" technology giants, the industry features a lot of competition. However, their products solely focus on home usages and therefore are seen as indirect competitors. If they do decide to expand their digital assistants into the educational technology field, they will have a competitive advantage due to brand loyalty and possible compatibility with their other products.

Our Competitive Advantage

Our current competitive advantage is that we are the first to come up with the idea to combine digital assistants with school public address systems. Through this idea, we can revolutionize how schools function at an administrative level while limiting distractions in the classroom. We also have relationships with many independent schools throughout the B.C. Lower Mainland which we can use for testing purposes or for our first product launches. Our system plans on being simple and easy to use for educators, which is another competitive advantage as we focus this broadly used technology into a system just for educational settings.

Educational Technology Industry Analysis Tools

Porter's 5 Forces

We are here to guide the education industry towards the classrooms of the future - one step at a time...

Joseph Villella - Founder of Schoolink
jvillella_ubc_avatar (1)
Schoolink

Business Model

We will only offer a single product – Schoolink. Our reasoning for a single model of this product is to cut costs through the ability to manufacture a single product in bulk. Focusing on a single product is also smart for our start-up venture to ensure we can offer proper support and to provide the highest quality product that we can create. We would rather perfect a single product instead of making multiple “ok” products. In the future, we acknowledge that there could be more opportunities for different models of Schoolink.

Schoolink - Device

Cost: $199.99 CAD per device

Installation Fee: Free with Membership

Customer Support: Free with Membership

Schoolink - Membership

$29.99 CAD per year per device

OR

$299.99 CAD per year for unlimited devices

Devices will be sold through deals with school districts, government agencies, or directly to the educational institution, and a yearly membership fee will be invoiced as well. This yearly membership fee will cover support requests, warranty issues, and access to the functions of Schoolink.

Investor Request

We are basing our venture investor request using data from schools in British Columbia.

1936 Schools

We confidently project that we will be able to infiltrate the British Columbia Education Market by implementing Schoolink across 58 BC schools within the first 3 years. Although this projection only relates to the province of British Columbia, we plan to expand our market focus to the rest of Canada in Year 2. Pending a strategic analysis, we will expand our market to the United States in Year 3.

1936 Schools (1)

Based off of solely the BC school numbers, we estimate revenues of approximately $165,600 within the first 3 years. Our revenue will increase significantly as we expand our market and our costs will decrease through economies of scale.

Based on the above data, we are asking for a $100,000 investment for 25% of our company. We estimate our company to have a valuation of $400,000.

Reflection

I enjoyed the challenge of this assignment as I have always been interested in entrepreneurship. I had great difficulty coming up with an original idea, and I did so by first thinking of a problem that needed to be solved. Myself and my students often get a bit annoyed by constant public address system announcements throughout the day that can sometimes be unnecessary. An example of this could be the shift of recess being inside due to rain. The solution that I came up with was a silent announcement system, which was inspired by the notification my Amazon Echo gives when an Amazon package arrives. This is how I came up with the idea to merge the public address system with a digital assistant. At this point, another problem I had thought of was how my school has a staggered dismissal time due to safety concerns relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, the school bell only rings at 2:55pm even though half of the classes leave at 2:50pm. By having a digital assistant in each classroom, bell schedules could be individualized to the class without disturbing the rest of the school. I do feel passionate about my idea and think it would have the ability to make a positive impact in the education industry.

Strengths

I think the strength of my pitch is my explanation and reasoning for the need for Schoolink. I believe I did a good job explaining why it is the next evolution of public address systems in schools and how it could persuade decision makers to pick it over traditional public address systems. I also think my market analysis is well done as it captures the two industries which impact Schoolink the most – the educational technology industry and the digital assistant industry.

Weaknesses

I think there are a few weaknesses in my business model, specifically relating to the investor request and pricing. I tried to come up with reasoning for my requested funding and a pricing model that would make sense, but I do think I could have missed some considerations that would impact this section. I also think that there is a weakness in my overall idea, as if the main competitors implement functionalities that matter to educators, they would then have a large competitive advantage over Schoolink.

References