Project Overview
In a challenging and rigorous environment where making meaningful connections can be difficult, Womenexus is an app specifically designed for women to empower one another. Womenexus would be a one-of-a-kind program focused on creating a virtual community of women to help guide and support others through career goals and adversities in life. This app would create a safe space for women to connect with other women. At the University of Colorado, Womenexus would provide a platform for women to build friendships and mentorships while navigating college, whether it be prior to arriving on campus or while in the middle of their studies. In the College of Arts and Sciences, this can include guidance in pre-medicine and pre-law pathways, along with shadowing and internship opportunities. The app could be expanded across other colleges, helping students with networking. For instance, students at the Leeds School of Business could connect with individuals from large companies. Women from any discipline at CU can learn from the experiences of others who have gone before them in their prospective fields.
Womenexus is unique because women can post about their lives and match up with others who have similar experiences. Women are more likely to leave the premed track than men, and 50% of women feel isolated in college. This is an app designed to have women be there for other women at the touch of a button. Womenexus is designed for women ages 18–26 looking for discreet, accessible outreach. We are focused on privacy, safety, inclusivity, support, and building a kind community for women. The app will be moderated using a dual system utilizing software that immediately bans users who harass or break user guidelines, along with a human mediator who will ensure the safety of users. This app can break the geographical barrier, helping women form meaningful relationships with peers and mentors.
Womenexus is revolutionary because it encompasses several features of existing apps, such as profile swiping to match with friends and mentors, private chatting, and open discussion forums into one app with the sole purpose of helping women. Differentiating from other known apps such as Discord and Reddit, Womenexus will be able to match similar women together, forming an online community. We would begin app development with the swiping feature, which makes Womenexus unique. Later, the app would grow into a fully functional platform with chat rooms and discussion forums. There is no other app that exists like this on the market. It is easy to use from anywhere at any time and avoids the social anxiety of in-person interactions.
Project Purpose
Women experience a multitude of challenges throughout their lifetimes and often are forced to navigate through these without an adequate support system. College can be lonely and isolating, and this app would provide a safe space to connect with others and receive advice. Additionally, out-of-state students often arrive without knowing any others. An app could be useful for students to network prior to arriving on campus while also navigating all of the new changes that come with moving. Womenexus would facilitate the development of new online connections that would later build into in-person friendships and communities. This would provide women with a support system to help with inevitable challenges. Females, in particular, face additional gender adversities. An accessible support system at school can be extremely helpful, especially when family and other friends may be far away.
Stakeholders and Needs
The first key stakeholder is the innovation fund along with all of its valuable mentors. The innovation incubator can help further progress app research and development to make it the most beneficial for our target audience. Additionally, they can help facilitate building and distributing app development surveys and navigating university guidelines. Next, we are working closely with Blueprint Boulder, a group of computer science and engineering students at CU who are excited to develop an initial working prototype for Womenexus. In addition, the University of Colorado could be a partner in this app’s use and promotion. The app would be managed by Sage, Hannah, Sydney, and Dr. Park. The final app would be created and continuously updated by continuing Blueprint Boulder students.
Intended Impact
Womenexus is designed to help female undergraduate students feel more connected and part of a larger community. It provides a digital platform where women are able to help guide and support others through career goals, academic goals, and adversities in life. It would serve as a supportive group where women are safely able to discuss academic and personal concerns. Women would be able to match up with others who have shared experiences in order to gain insight and advice. It would also facilitate networking to build connections, friendships, and mentorships, improving the overall college experience.
Team Description/Gaps
Sydney, Sage, and Hannah have resiliently overcome challenging experiences, including an abusive relationship and the loss of a mother and friend. During these grave times, they wished they had an unbiased support system. Dr. Park, being a young female professor, sees the necessity for accessible career and life advice. They are all women in the College of Arts and Sciences, which is particularly susceptible to gender segregation. They will help kickstart the app’s development and promotion. Sage has business experience that helps with the human interaction and promotion of the app. Dr. Park has advanced problem solving and research skills, applicable to the app’s development. Hannah and Sydney are both analytical and detail-oriented, helping to carefully design an intricate app. All of these skills together create a diverse, knowledgeable team.
Intended Scale
Ultimately, we plan on positively impacting every female student who attends or works at CU. We plan on primarily targeting women in the College of Arts and Sciences and later expanding to other colleges at CU. We would market to incoming students, but upperclassmen would have the option to be involved in the app as well. Over the course of the next three years, we would expect to see 13,000 students at CU impacted by our app, Womenexus. Eventually, we hope to exponentially impact women at universities all around the nation.
Funding Request and Intended Use of Funds
Before a prototype app is developed, students would take an initial survey to give feedback on design, formatting, and appeal. These students will be reached by posting QR codes around campus, giving the survey to A&S professors to distribute to students, and contacting various student organizations to help with promotion. The innovation incubator would aid us in survey distribution, ensuring that we meet campus guidelines. Later, students will take an additional survey on the prototype. Students would be paid for taking these in a raffle style, with prizes totaling $1,500. Blueprint Boulder offered to design our prototype app for free given that we set aside $15,000 for meeting necessities and other costs over the entire duration of the project, including app maintenance. Hannah, Sage, Sydney, and Dr. Park would each be paid $3,500 per year for promotion and management of the app during the three years. $6,500 would be used to promote the launch of the final coded Womenexus app made by Blueprint Boulder.
Anticipated Long Term Needs
The app will need updates and additional features that will be designed by Blueprint Boulder students throughout its development and use. Additionally, our team, along with CU, would need to promote the app to incoming students. This app will be self-sustaining, and once it takes off, it will powerfully impact many women in the CU community and beyond.
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Hey, Team Womenexus! Thank you so much for submitting your idea! After reading through your proposal, I have some suggestions for getting more detailed and nimble with your budget. Developing and maintaining a successful app is a big, long-term undertaking. I wonder if you can further explore the resources available to you on campus, like students in the Creative Technology Design (CTD) program at Atlas or in the Computer Science (CS) department in the College of A&S. There might be a student or team of students in these departments who would develop a working prototype or Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for you for a course, rather than pay. That way, you can reserve more of your funds for future development and sustainability. Or, you might think about a way to engage a collaborative of women student developers on campus who design and maintain the app over the long-haul which is another way of creating connection across your target audience! Another budgetary item to think about is incentivizing testers who are giving feedback on your design, formatting, and appeal. You can budget for gift cards, for example. You can also budget student pay for the students on this project (alternatively, you might want to get credit for your work by focusing on the project for an independent study) and professional development funds for the faculty on the project. Something to consider — you can be compensated, in either pay or credit, for the time and energy that you invest in this project!
This sounds like a very interesting and worthwhile project, but for a highly technical project I am concerned about the lack of detail on how the application will be developed and why this support needs to be provided through an App – i.e. why do we need a technical solution to support this campus community? I would recommend setting for an smaller goal for this round of funding and aim to just support the survey to see if there is demand/need for a technical solution and if so what kind of features are needed in the tech. You could also maybe include a stretch goal of having undergraduate students create non-functional prototypes, but I do not currently see enough details to justify hiring a professional software engineer at this stage of the project. Here is a more detailed list of my suggestions/feedback for the proposal:
1. What will this app provide that existing communication avenues do not? Adoption of apps and new communication venues (e.g. email vs texting campaigns) is notoriously difficult. So why not create a custom Discord or Slack channel instead?
2. Are there any existing products (free or paid) which can provide these resources? What is missing from existing sources that requires the creation of this custom app? Can these products be modified to meet your needs and/or create a smaller supplementary App to fill in the gaps?
3. For stakeholders, are there other campus organizations that should be involved with this collaboration? What are there views on the creation of an App to support women on campus? For example, the Center for Inclusion and Social Change states that “The center is excited to welcome and support undergraduate and graduate students identifying as women and connect you to resources that will help you navigate CU Boulder and succeed as part of this community.” What does this App provide that the Center or similar groups do not?
4. How do you plan to manage the development of this project? While undergraduate students can help support the creation of this project’s prototype, they would be limited to only creating a mock-up and likely would not be able to create a robust or maintainable app on their own. Therefore, you will need a professional software engineer to manage the creation of this app and support the student developers. ASSETT does not currently have anyone to fill in this role, so someone outside of ASSETT would need to be consulted to support the management of this software project. While you have listed hiring a software developer, will this be through a campus group (e.g. OIT?) or an outside hire? If an outside hire, do you have someone in mind already? If not, how do you plan to vet their skills and capabilities to create your App?
6. What are your plans for long term support? You have listed “we will need to submit an extra funding request after a smooth prototype is built.” – but to whom will this request be made to? Is the expectation to petition for further ASSETT funding, campus funding, or work through a grant? As for the “long-term internal manager”, do you already have someone in mind or at least a campus group who you can hire from? What would the feasibility be to pay part time for an existing campus employee to maintain the application?
Yet again, I think this is a worthwhile project ,however, I do not see enough details on why a technical solution is needed to foster a campus community for women nor why a custom App is needed instead of using existing technology.
I don’t have much to add to the feedback above. Blair has provided a lot of good ideas for refining your draft. Michael asks a lot of good technical questions which would have to be addressed if you choose to create an app as the best way to accomplish the important objectives you outline. That said, I think the fact that you are making this proposal indicates that the existing resources and platforms the university provides aren’t meeting the needs you identify. One suggestion for revision–again noting that Blair has given you some great concrete advice for refining your proposal–would be to address how the incubator’s design process could help you develop your idea and create a long-term sustainability plan. Also, I love Blair’s idea of imagining the possibility of collaborating with student teams to develop technological resources to help realize your vision; rather than hire a software developer, why not work with like-minded students and allies to help you address the needs you see.
Fantastic proposal and feedback from the reviewers above, and I’d highly recommend a more narrow focus of the target problem and customer. The proposal describes a few interesting areas of focus (pre med, all of A&S, etc.), with this statement of scale: “positively impacting every female student who attends or works at CU. We plan on primarily targeting women in the College of Arts and Sciences.” Is this intended for pre-med? for enrolled students? for employees at CU? and what’s the specific problem to be solved?
Narrowing in on the specific problem to be solved – and what student segments have this “pain” is going to be really key in a world of proliferating apps and platforms. Suggest y’all take a look at other companies that have done this well especially for university students – maybe even take a look at how community colleges are doing this to support their students. One interesting example is https://piazza.com/ where the founder created a platform for engineering students to anonymously ask “dumb” questions. While not the scope of this proposal, it would help to see a more narrow focus on the intended problem to be solved.
Good luck!