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March 18th, 2024

Navigating Your Path To

International Education

Social Impact Track Pitches

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

OUR STORY

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Qualitative

Found the research process time-consuming as they often encounter irrelevant and unreliable information.

Suffered from demotivation and constant stress throughout the process.

UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

THE PROBLEM IS REAL AND PREVALENT

Insights from 10+ interviews and 85 validation exercise responses

85 is the number of responses we receive after 2 weeks of running the experiment.

~70% are still unclear about the whole process.

83% of students come from modest background

Quantitative

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Affordability/Accessibility

Relevant Information

UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

EXISTING ALTERNATIVES

Current ones don’t tackle the problem well enough

Social Media

College Consulting Services

Websites

UniMate

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

AND THAT’S WHERE UNIMATE COMES IN

Our Hypothesized Solution

A web platform for students to connect with mentors and easily access necessary resources

Connect with current college undergraduates

Accessible college research resources

Community forums

…and many other supportive features!

Minh

Content: a map with 3 stakeholders (mentee, mentor, and 3rd parties (college consulting services & schools), and our value proposition for them

Purpose: Make sure the judges understand that our solution is a web platform, and the values it provides for each stakeholder

Having identified the our opportunity space, we came up with out hypothesized solution of a web platform where we would provide our users with various features to assist them with their college research process. Some of these would include the ability for students to connect with college undergraduates for guidance, gain genuine insights, and be able to share their personalize questions and concerns. College research resources would also be available for students to access to support their research, along with help from members of the community through the community forums. These are only some of the many features that we plan to implement in order to give our users the best experience using our platform.

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

AND THAT’S WHERE UNIMATE COMES IN

Our Unique Value Proposition for Key Stakeholders

Students

Mentors

Educational Institutions

Networking Opportunities

Sense of Fulfillment

Relevance & Reliability of Data

Accessible Support

Brand Awareness Opportunities

Reach diverse student body

Minh

Content: a map with 3 stakeholders (mentee, mentor, and 3rd parties (college consulting services & schools), and our value proposition for them

Purpose: Make sure the judges understand that our solution is a web platform, and the values it provides for each stakeholder

As a result, through UniMate, students would be able to quickly access relevant and reliable information, along with receiving support throughout their journey to feel confident about their process. On the other hand, mentors have the chance to give back to the community and help later generations with their journey. This would also present them with great networking opportunities with other members of the community in UniMate. Finally, with the community that we are able to build, there is opportunity for educational institutions to represent themselves and increase their brand awareness while reaching a diverse student population.

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

Computer Science ‘26

Hoang Nguyen

TEAM & ADVISORS

We have the right team as well

Nhan Ton

Computer Science ‘25

Minh Dinh

Computer Science ‘26

Nguyen Le

Computer Science ‘26

Chichi Zhao

Graphic Design MFA ‘25

TEAM

ADVISORS

Lead Product Manager

Ryan McMorrow

Technical Program Manager

Macy So

Director of DevOps

Bruce Kofi

Principal Software Engineer

Manuel de la Pena

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

UNIMATE HAS BEEN MAKING PROGRESS

In 2 weeks, hosted more than 85

sessions between mentors and mentees

Invited 17 mentors from prestigious universities

4.72/5 and 4.2/5 average satisfaction from mentees and mentors, respectively.

3rd Place - Social Impact Track

$100K Poyiadjis Innovation Competition

Validated demand using Piecemeal MVP

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UNIMATE - XC475

Social Impact Track Pitches

…AND WE PLAN TO DO EVEN MORE!

Idea

Validation

Q4 2023

Spark Innovation

Fellowship

Q1 2024

MVP

May 2024

Beta

Testing

Q3 2024

Public

Launch

Q4 2024

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