LevelUp

US-Russia STEM Project

BUSINESS CONCEPT PAPER GUIDELINES

Our Challenge

Our project will be connected with the technologies that will help to develop tourism in Moscow and Miami. The product of our work is the application for mobile phones, at check-in which you are entering into an exciting game associated with the various attractions of Moscow/Miami and execution of tasks. Also the potential customer should make a contribution of 10$ during the registration. For each completed challenge people will receive a certain amount of money. There will be the first, second and third places.The prizes for winning are cash amounts too. The game is divided into several stages and deadlines. People who earned less money or completed the assignment will leave the game. The participants will be able to receive various benefits such as discounts at the hotels, discounts on tickets for travelling in the city. 

We believe that this way we can attract lots of tourists in Moscow/Miami wishing to get benefits, relax and see the sights.

 Our Idea:

Team Name: Level Up

Team Logo:

Team Members

1.TAISIA MELNIKOVA

2. OLGA DZHURAYEVA

3. DANILA KEDRIN

4. DAYANA PEREZ

5. HUMBERTO SOSA

6. MATEO HERRERA

Executive summary

Developing our idea, we've thought of many different qualities and characteristics of this project.

We believe that every tourist under the age of majority can participate in our project. However, we believe that a greater percentage of the audience will consist of young people aged 20 to 25 years, as such the application is an opportunity for them to show their best qualities and to develop their knowledge and skills. We will also do our best to make them enjoying our product.

It is the mobile app, check in which you enter into a game related to the various sights of Moscow / Miami and execution of tasks. For participation in the project "Hurry App" people will be required to deposit 10$ which will be transferred to the account of our company.

Also, collaborating with various hotels and travel companies, we are going to get our share. Thus storing funds, we will be able to award three winners qualified for the final sum of the money, retaining the contributions of those people who was eliminated from the competition. So we are breakeven.

Our project will bring great profit to the winners of our project and also to companies and firms who collaborated with us. Soon more and more companies will join us, so that the benefit will be provided to the huge number of people, which in turn will involve in our project all much more customers. We have a huge advantage that our project is unique among the others not only because ofthe excitement and the pursuit of profit, but also because of cultural enrichment of the participants and they will be able to study the history and cultural characteristics of the Moscow and Miami. One of the main advantages is the accessibility of participation in our project.

The STEM has a huge number of employees versed in the latest techniques and has incredible experience in working with the applications, therefore, the support STEM can have a very beneficial effect on the development and improvement of our idea.

Creativity and Innovation

"Hurry App" can be considered a unique application for a lot of reasons.

Firstly, there are two types of accounts in our application: free and paid. When you subscribe to a free account you get the same contests and jobs as the owners of paid accounts, however the main prize in this case will be good emotions and impressions from the spent time. If you want to participate in the game and try to win the sum of money, you have only to be a tourist from another country and to have 10$, so it is available to everyone.

Secondly, in the modern world culture and history play a huge role to mankind along with technology, and our project takes it into account and allows people to interact with all of these aspects simultaneously, which will allow them to save time, to spend it wisely and to develop culturally.

It is also important to understand that our app will give people some advantage in their tourism life at the time of participation in the project: various discounts at hotels, free coupons for certain services and entertainment, and tickets to some tourist companies.

Our company will use the most advanced technologies and programs specializing in the areas of geolocation, economics and informatics and communications. This will allow us to monitor the progress of the tasks and visiting all the sights and accurately keep track of time to reward work and punish idleness all.

We are confident that we will do everything possible so our idea was revolutionary and has led us to achieve all our goals.

Detailed description

Our app has a huge number of features, qualities and details that should be mentioned.

"Hurry App" can be downloaded from any mobile service, as the app is free. There are two ways to activate it: you have to use the participant code, each of them is generated randomly and after activation will change over every 30 minutes to avoid the possibility of hacking the account and provide security to the user. The code can be purchased for 10$ which have to be activated before the beginning of the game. The schedule will be available on the official website of our company and constantly updated. Thus users will be provided with convenience. It is in the case you have bought the paid account. If you want to get some experience and wonderful memories but not the money, you can activate the free account and to take part in all the quests but for free too.

All hosted games will differ from each other with sites that have to be visited, and with deadlines. For example, one game lasts a month and the second only a week. This is done for different groups of tourists who arrived in Moscow or Miami for a different number of days. For each task completed on time players get a certain amount of money which depends on the time tourists wasted to complete the task. Also by completing tasks, people will receive special opportunities and small rewards such as discounts in hotels.

The tasks will also have a differ from each other in complexity and time for which they have to be completed. Respectively, cash amounts will also be different. Here is an example of one of the quests:

1. Read the tip sent by e-mail.

2. Find the sight because of the tip's help.

3. To find the area of this sight. An artifact is a tip to another rebus.

4. Arriving at a new place you need to take a photo of yourself on the background of this sight and to spread in the network at a certain time.

After a few minutes to e-mail the player receives a letter which contains a new rebus, after guessing which tourist does the job. All these steps must be performed with the greatest accuracy and in the shortest timeframe, and riddles and clues can be encrypted. As example is the Caesar cipher.

During task execution, the app will bring the statistics to all participants by identifying the best. Thus will be determined the winners. Eliminated from the competition will retain a certain percentage of savings that they were able to earn that will viscitudes, based on how successful the players were, how many tasks completed and how many stages the game lasted. The three winners, in addition to their accumulated money will be given a predetermined amount of money, then the game ends and a new one begins after a few days of training, and everything repeats again.

Our team will make every effort to further develop this idea by adding different conditions and making the gameplay more fun and comfortable for users.

The Role of STEM

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics in our project play a huge role, because its foundation consists of the creation of a mobile application, and with its help tourists will be able to explore and appreciate the sights of Moscow and Miami.

Science is required in order to conduct research in society and make conclusions, what sights and tasks they are interested in.

With the help of Technology and Engineering, as well as employees and funds involved, we will be able to create the application itself, which was developed previously.

Mathematics is also very important component of the implementation of our idea because with its help we can correctly distribute the income and expenses of our team during the implementation of the idea.

This is what makes our product so unique. Also, in this way STEM will give our product an incredible competitiveness, which we will use to increase the knowledge of people and improve tourism in general.

Marketing Strategy

Our company is going to promote and sell our application "Hurry App" in the first place through advertising: commercials that will produce well-known figures of YouTube in which such advertising will be paid for; advertising, which will push the owners of the various businesses such as hotels and museums, cafes, that give the special discounts for the owners of free accounts, who win the game. We will also advertise our product with the help of electronic banners placed on the Internet.

We believe that our clients can be people from different social groups who have reached the age of 18. Because of the help of advertising, which we will pay, potential customers will learn about us and want to take part in the exciting game that our team offers them. Members of our team conducted a survey of some random travelers and find out that this application would really do a study of the culture of our state is much better than if they follow a traditional method of researching new areas. This means that we could have quite a large number of clients.

Our application gives tourists a unique opportunity to spend time on the territory of another state for them with benefit and interest, without requiring anything in return. Thanks to it, our company will always be supplied with numerous clientele.

Finance

The number of downloads of mobile applications is actively growing, as well as the share of applications for Android on the mobile market. In 2016, consumers around the world spent $ 61.8 billion on mobile apps. According to App Annie's forecast, this figure will grow and in 2021 it is expected that the amount spent on mobile applications will reach 82.2 billion dollars.

Now more and more people prefer to use the apps. In a rapidly developing environment, it has become much easier to get information using mobile devices — it does not matter whether you are standing in line, are in a cafe, or your business is associated with constant movement.

Let's analyze the most important aspects that affect the cost of mobile development:

experience and location of your outsourcing development team;

• the complexity of your future application;
• operating system;
• the design of the mobile application.

The development of a mobile application takes over the largest part of the project budget, as it includes the work of various specialists and depends on the time spent by them.

The cost of your future application will directly depend on the amount of work carried out by the team. Parameters that affect the amount of work and, accordingly, the budget of mobile development:

• Number of screens;
• User control;
• Types of devices (smartphone, tablet or both);
• Screen orientation modes;
• Security;
• Supported OS versions;
• The number of languages supported;
• How the app will progress.

Depending on the classification, applications can be divided into:

• Native-that is, written in this way as conceived by the creators of the platform;
• Web applications are the same site with mobile layout that works in a mobile browser;
• Cross-platform-something between web and native technologies, works on both Android and iOS, but the guarantee of quality work is difficult to give.
  

As for the choice of operating system — it is no secret that the most popular are now Android and iOS. While if the application for Apple, as a rule, are more expensive on the Play Market, mobile applications for Android are in demand from a much larger number of users. According to statistics, Android is now the most widely used OS in the world. Moreover, in the first quarter of 2017, the share of Android applications in the market amounted to 86.1%.

Taking into account the above arguments and the average hourly rates of application development, we can calculate the approximate cost of development in different regions:

USA: $ 46 000- $ 230 000;

Canada: $ 46,000 - $230,000;

Australia: $46 000 to $138 000;

Western Europe: $ 47 600 - $161 000;

Eastern Europe: $ 35,000- $138,000;

India: $9,200- $73,600.

Most of the initial capital our company will be received by cooperating with other companies, advertising them, as well as by attracting volunteers in the business of our company.

Steps to become break-even in our business:

The first and most important thing is to be popular, your future mobile app needs to meet the needs of your target audience; Even with perfectly written code and excellent custom design, if your buyers don't get the solution of their task, the app is unlikely to benefit you. So that the customer comes first.

Take responsibility for the choice of the outsourcing team of developers. Evaluate the price offers in the selected region, pay attention to the projects from the portfolio of selected companies. Try to choose the best combination of price and experience.

Discuss, as far as possible in detail, all the details of the future project with the selected team of developers: business logic and functionality, the region in which you plan to run the product, monetization, Analytics.
Make your preferences regarding the design of your mobile application.

Adhering to this plan, "LevelUp" will always be able to stay afloat.

Operating the business

1. OLGA DZHURAYEVA                                   Design Director

2. DANILA KEDRIN                                          General Director

3. TAISIA MELNIKOVA                                        Logistics Director

4. DAYANA PEREZ                                              Communications Director

5. HUMBERTO SOSA                                          Financial Director

6. MATEO HERRERA                                           Programming Spesialist

We believe that the command "LevelUp" is cohesive, where all team members work together and help each other. For example, the Russian part of the team regularly contacts the USA's part of the team to share their ideas and plans regarding our common project. Each of us is ready to support and help the other at any time. Unity is undoubtedly the main thing in the team.

However, do not forget about the various skills that employees must have to manage the business and develop all the right ideas. For example, the responsibility, the sense of duty, the diligence, the desire to make the world a better place, the dedication and his comrades, all this helps to perfectly adjust the work and is welcomed in our team. Also, such skills as the ability to work with new technologies and understand different programs, eloquence, will help to accelerate the process of development of the project and most efficiently implement it. Our team contains all the people necessary for this. There are also special instructions developed by us for each team member according to his position:

1. The General Director is obliged to ensure stability in the work of the team on the project, providing support and motivation to each of the team members; monitor the competent performance of their duties by other team members; represent the entire team as a whole.

2. The design Director provides graphic design of the project and the product, presenting it to the client in the best and most convenient and comfortable for use form.

3. Director of logistics develops plans of purchases; coordinates search of suppliers; directs the analysis of conditions of contracts of deliveries and reliability of deliveries; provides drawing up and timely placement of orders from suppliers.

4. The Director of communications ensures communication between the client and the company, and also helps the Director of logistics to establish contacts with various companies for the purpose of cooperation.

5. The Finance Director calculates the income and expenses of the company, is developing a financial plan and marketing strategy.

6. The programming specialist is responsible for his subordinates engaged in programming, updating and controlling the application "HurryApp"; participates in the creation of the product.

There is also one common duty that requires the performance of each team member - a responsible approach to the execution of all their duties, which makes the team so cohesive.

SWOT

Impact

Our project will be directly aimed at increasing the flow of tourists and their interest in such cities as Moscow or Miami. According to the idea the attendance of these cities will increase in many times. this will be evident from the change in the average tourism figure and the number of downloads of the application.