Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch Competition | Problem Lab
February 6, 2022
Try to concisely describe the problem in 1-to-2 sentences
There is no efficient space to connect with only the university (college) community consisting of university students, faculties, staff, alumni, high school students who want to apply to the university, businesses targeting university students, and the university itself. Thus, they are hard to ask or find accurate information or do something freely and easily directly to someone in a verified university community online.
Limit of 250 words / What industry or organizations are affected by the problem? / What market segment(s) are affected by the problem and how much revenue does it generate?
Three groups are affected by this problem: Student group, a university group - supports and runs university - including university itself, faculty, staff, and alumni, a business group - needs university community - including local businesses to rely on the university community, business targeting university students, and local drivers for rideshare targeting university students.
Student groups have wanted an online space with students and alumni from the same university. Thus, they have built an unofficial community thanks to Reddit. For example, University of Toronto has 80.8K members since 2009. There are also over 200 Discord servers representing University of Waterloo clubs and communities. Students have created Facebook groups as well to find sublets, rideshare, and used textbooks: Student Housing Waterloo has 66K members since 2015. In addition, they use other platforms such as UWFlow to see course and professor rates, Google Maps to see local restaurant rates, Instagram to post confessions or follow university news.
It’s the university group’s main responsibility to support students build relationships with businesses, alumni and faculty. Thus, they run conferences, social events, school job boards (i.e. WaterlooWorks) and use Piazza or LinkedIn to connect faculty and students.
The business group relies on the university community, which is the main customer to local businesses, especially in a college town. Hence, they need a place to advertise their products directly to university students. They even can hire students either full-time or part-time in the place.
Limit of 250 words / What background information about the present day is necessary to fully appreciate the problem you are analyzing? E.g., principles, terminology