7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

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.