connectED

Inspiration

Inspiration (my struggles inspired me to develop connectEd) I planned for MBA after 9-years of struggle to keep my family business off the ground while working full time on another job. Though my game plan to serve specifically lower-middle-class people helped my family members flourish the business, it was an uphill battle for me as financial constraints, upheaval in our country’s economic situation, and competition gave me a tough time. In 2014 when I was looking for resources for our business. When it comes to funding, I realized that state bank is only willing to lend money to large firms. Additionally, I couldn’t find any consultancy that can help me with a strategy/game plan. However, the members from the local chamber of commerce and local university student association helped me do my market research and promote my business. I realized that there are organizations at the international and national levels that have all the resources but the local people at the root level have little to no excess to these resources.
Putting in 100% efforts for the current post-pandemic situation for small businesses, I created connectEd and therefore this Application! According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 70% of small businesses have less than two employees and lack resources. Most of the Large Organizations with resources work at the Regional level. Therefore, small businesses at the local level are not able to get fully benefited.

What it does

Vision: You cannot achieve everything by yourself! You need a support system The aim of this web services is to address the local small business problems by bringing the local large government and non-government originations on one platform and to pool in resources with the least cost

How we built it

We will partner with

1. Local Chamber of Commerce
2. Students and faculties from Local Universities
3. Large Organizations
4. Non-Profit

Challenges we ran into

All these large organizations such as the US small Business administration and the National small business association working at the regional level. Most of the local small businesses are not able to reach out to these organizations. the biggest challenge was to bring in organizations that are really willing to work towards this issue. Partnering with universities and students was challenging as they demand in return for their work. Therefore, we created a certification that acknowledges students effort towards the project

Accomplishments that we're proud of

connectEd-DC----an example AU School of international studies (Student research center) and the District of Columbia chamber of commerce will work with the National small business association and US small business administration to pool learning resources from technology to marketing to help small business issues and create ways to fund capital where needed. The aim is to use Business service and Technology and Business Insurance resources from the National small business associations and to use learning platforms and business contracting resources from US small business administration.

What we learned

The success of any social problem can be solved through a set of dyadic ties where the social actors work together to pool exciting resources to help recent social problems.

What's next for connectED

1. Market research: Finding top small businesses that need urgent help
2. Solution by teaming: University students and members of local chambers work together to bring solutions for problems. They will partner with large organizations and NGO’s to pool their resources that can help local businesses
   
3. Education: The other major responsibility will be to bring an educational platform for entrepreneurs. that will include basic and advanced technical training and mentoring.
4. Resources: The other major aim of connectEd will be to provide resources such as funding or consultation. The special consultancy will also be provided through connectEd that will involve analysis, future trends, and game plans for the next 10 years.

Built With

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