Developing
countries access to online education
Hypothesis: The youth in
developing countries lack access to online education due to high costs of
technology.
Testing
the who: In interviewing the five
potential customers, I found that the ‘who’ in my opportunity was a little too
broad; while there is youth in developing countries that lack access to online
education, there is also youth who are provided access to these materials,
therefore the opportunity would not exist. What many of the respondents claimed
is that maybe I should narrow the developing countries down to a few or even
just one, because not only would it make my opportunity less likely for others
to have, it also provides these certain few people with access to materials and
knowledge they’ve never had a chance to receive before. This was helpful in
that now instead of wasting time searching for an opportunity that reaches a
wide variety of people who may or may not have access to online education, I
can target a country or even city that lacks the funds to buy technology such
as computers, tablets, etc. and from an opportunity through that country/city
alone.
Testing
the what: When searching for the
boundaries of the need, the respondents suggested that maybe the youth are not
the only ones facing this need. Not only are students unable to access learning
materials through new technology but neither are the teachers, or more so
parents of these students. While in some countries, the youth may very well be
the only ones with this unmet need. But some countries may lack technology in
the professional world. While this may seem crazy due to the state of
technology we are in today, many countries around the world aren’t able to
access these resources due to high costs of technology. The people I
interviewed stood to claim that maybe the youth aren’t the only ones with this
problem. I can definitely see an opportunity for a large impact on a country
that people may neglect when it comes to education and providing resources that
can help not only the youth, but professionals grow and expand intellectually.
Testing
the why: After interviewing each
of the five people, I found that high costs of technology is the main reason
for the lack of access to online education in these developing countries. The
people of these countries could attribute this to government restrictions, high
costs based off of other countries supply and demand, lack of industrial
equipment, etc. The ‘why’ was a more difficult element because without
targeting a specific country in the ‘who’, there could be a plethora of reasons
that certain developing countries have a lack of access to online education.
Summary:
After five lengthy interviews with people of
different backgrounds, I found that my opportunity needs a lot of tuning before
becoming something I can put into action. Regarding the ‘who’ element of the
opportunity, I need to go further into research and find out which developing
countries actually need assistance in accessing this technology. In prodding
and pushing the limits of my opportunity, I also found that the youth in these
countries may not be the only ones who need assistance in receiving educational
technology. This is actually helpful because now not only is my opportunity
limited to the youth in these countries, but now I could extend my opportunity
to professionals. The ‘why’ element of my opportunity is probably the most
problematic of all the elements because without identifying and targeting a
country or population that needs this access to online education and materials,
I cannot move forward in my opportunity. Without the guidance and perspectives
of the five people I interviewed, my opportunity is extremely broad and likely
to fail. By testing the boundaries of my opportunity, I learned to evaluate
each of the elements involved before jumping into action. I found that I needed
to target a very specific group of consumers in my ‘who’, identify the unmet
needs that this group of people shares in my ‘what’, and find out how to
exploit these problems through my ‘what’, and evaluate how I can efficiently
make a change in these people’s lives.
