| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 25, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 25, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1820018 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Rajesh Mehta
rmehta@nsf.gov (703)292-2174 TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | July 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $225,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $225,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
15340 PALMER RD MARSTON NC US 28363-8310 (919)360-1053 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1000 Park Forty Plaza Durham NC US 27713-1111 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | SBIR Phase I |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
This SBIR Phase I project takes a deeper look at the concept of 'purpose' and its relationship to the marketplace, unemployment, and start-up incubators. It intends to develop a multi-question self-assessment tool to help individuals find meaningful purpose through free, online, live and self-paced hybrid course instruction. The coursework will use augmented reality and 3-D video to motivate individuals to re-think purpose as a central motivation to employment and entrepreneurship. This project aligns with the NSF?s mission to advance national health, prosperity, and welfare with science and technology. These outcomes could potentially generate a new generation of business owners that are dedicated to meaning and money through a double bottom-line approach to entrepreneurship.
This project combines the educational work of finding purpose through self- help and the technology of 3-D video and augmented reality for the first time. This unique project provides free online live synchronous education combined with hybrid self-paced online course work to help individuals find meaningful self-employment solutions. This project utilizes a proprietary training method designed to quickly help individuals find their purpose in life and invent a useful business or nonprofit to solve problems in the world. This research can help students re-center their motivations to chart a meaningful life course through a business or nonprofit start-up. The curriculum starts with this activity and extends to provide students an opportunity to enter the marketplace through micro-enterprise or nonprofit creation. The courses will utilize predictive analytics to synthesize student data (such as the answers each student inputs for the four questions in the purpose activity). The data will be reorganized and automated into a clear and targeted purpose proposition statement for the student.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
In 2018 Post-secondary enrollment fell 1.7%, marking the eighth straight year of declines (U.S.News, 2019). The Gallup (2019) firm found, ?four out of five college graduates affirm the importance of finding purpose in their work. However, less than half of college graduates succeed in finding purposeful work.? When it comes to finding purpose, college is broken, and the ways in which colleges have historically been constructed do not align with the current and future goals of aspiring millennial students.
Our mission in this SBIR Phase I research project has grown from one core belief that ?all people, including poor people, have gifts and talents.? As educators our goal is to provide tools to help students know their gift and use their gift in a meaningful way through purpose-driven startups. Therefore, our educational technology objectives are two-fold 1) for the student to know their purpose, and 2) for the student to create a vehicle to do their purpose through a startup business or nonprofit.
Drakeford, Scott, & Associates, LLC is an African American owned think tank dedicated to solving community disparities and educational inequity through social entrepreneurship. Our SBIR Phase I: Online curriculum for creating purpose-driven start-ups, promotes the National Science Foundation?s statutory mission to advance national health, prosperity, and welfare with science and technology.
This project consisted of 12 months of literature reviews, quantitative, and qualitative data collection through: 58 peer-reviewed articles, 121 in-person customer discovery interviews, 291 product demos and surveys, 244 online self-paced course participants, and 516 Beta mobile app trial testers. Through our research we produced a white paper entitled: Community Colleges and the New Economy: (Re)tooling Learners through Purpose, Entrepreneurship, and Mobile Technology. The white paper introduces college administrators and faculty to the Purpose University Curriculum and mobile application as a solution to improve student engagement, retention, and entrepreneurship.
The PurposeU Mobile App? on iOS and Android platforms provides a unique set of e-course offerings using self-paced, live online, Augmented Reality (AR) and mobile app options. Each course is designed to improve student outcomes by connecting students to meaningful pursuits, with the option, to launch and grow a purpose-driven start-up. In the first 90 days of the mobile app launch, two colleges (1 Community College and 1 Private 4-year Institution) have already made purchases to offer the Purpose University Curriculum? to over 20,000 students.
Last Modified: 07/18/2019
Modified by: Derrick R Drakeford
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