Empower the unforgettable professor with minia app

• Grant number: 23/05305-6
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: André Ofenhejm Mascarenhas
• Grantee: André Ofenhejm Mascarenhas
• Company: Zetesis TI Educacional Ltda
• CNAE: Educação superior - graduação e pós-graduação
• City: São Paulo
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/16653-5 - Senior development of minia app, BP.TT; 23/12111-3 - Junior development of minia app, BP.TT; 23/10752-1 - Empower the unforgettable professor with Minia app, BP.PIPE; 23/11468-5 - Project management of minia software, BP.TT; 23/11523-6 - Assistance to Minia app's customer discovery, BP.TT

Abstract

The market opportunity with minia.app comes from the realization that communication between professors and students in higher education does not work well. The overall objective of the research is to bring teachers an innovative solution in communication, cooperation and sharing that results in a substantial improvement in the user experience, generating autonomy and positively intensifying the teaching experiences and, consequently, offering the student a better and more exciting learning experience. We identified that the mission of Zetesis TI Educacional Ltda is to put technologies in the hands of teachers and students that amplify the power of connectivity in teaching and learning, and value teaching work and their careers. We work with the concept of "unforgettable teacher", that is, one who facilitates the approximation between the learner and the object to be known through a positive affective bond (Leite, 2018), and we start from the assumption that all teachers can become "unforgettable" with the right attitude and tools. The minia.app will be a tool at the service of quality pedagogical mediation, facilitating the establishment of positive affective bonds between students and objects of knowledge. Minia.app fits in the hand, unlike the gigantic LMS, and builds the sense of community in the teacher's student groups, for face-to-face, hybrid and distance learning. In fact, the scenarios that flourish for the transformation of Higher Education point to a much more fluid and ubiquitous professional teacher presence. For this reason, we have embraced the task of developing a technology capable of supporting the construction of these links underlying contemporary education, always from a perspective congruent with the teacher's day-to-day life, always aiming to enhance his career. Our main competitor is WhatsApp, which has been increasingly adopted for educational purposes despite not having this purpose, and with many complaints, such as the lack of privacy. Minia.app solves these problems. The general objective of this Phase 1 will be to verify the full adequacy of our solution to the identified problem (problem/solution fit), to safely move on to the next stage, Phase 2, whose objective will be to seek the best business model (market/solution fit). For this, we propose to carry out three validation tests simultaneously with the development of the alpha version of the software: high-fidelity prototype testing, testing of the basic premises of the business, and validation testing of the alpha version of the app with real users. (AU)