APSKILLED
OVERVIEW
A professional to student mentoring platform can help connect laid-off skilled professionals with unskilled talent pools (university students) to engage in tech-education at our platform.
This project is my team's entry to the weekend hackathon Startup Weekend Indonesia, emerging as Top 10 Finalist. Mockup done in 10 hours.
ROLE
Product Designer
Product Strategy, Idea Generation. Product Conceptualisation, Visual Design, UI/UX Design, User Research
DURATION
April 2020 (24 hours)
Background
Startup Weekend Indonesia is part of the Startup Weekend series held in the same weekend for multiple locations. The hackathon aims to find innovative solutions to Indonesia's most prominent problems in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. My team and I decided to tackle the large-scale layoffs of tech professionals due to the pandemic.
I was the UI designer of the team along with 1 UXÂ researcher, 3Â business analysts and 2Â software engineers. I was responsible for the product conception and UI design.
My team and I managed to achieve the following:
1. Conception of the Product  - We managed to ideate quickly and propose a complete solution.
2. Executed End-To-End Design - I was able to effectively implement a design sprint to find out our target personas, ideate on the solution.
3. Achieving Top 10 Finalist - My team was one of the top 10 teams among over 100 entries for the hackathon, earning a chance to pitch to the panel.
Understanding the Problem
For this hackathon, our team decided to find the most prominent problem plaguing people our age. As I am the only Singaporean in the team, we could draw similar comparisons in experiences for both Indonesia and Singapore.Â
As we look into our social circles, we see our peers having their internships rescinded due to the budget cuts brought by the pandemic. Similarly, we dug deeper on professional social media sites such as Linkedin and the news sites, we realised the layoffs especially by tech companies in Indonesia were large scale, axing as much as 10-20% of their workforce. ​​​​​​​
Hence, there needs to be a solution that helps both the laid-off tech professionals and the university students who got their internship offers (hence learning opportunities) rescinded.Â
Defining the User Personas
So who exactly should we help? I led the brainstorming session to discover our target users, which falls into 2 segments:
1. Mentor Segment - Laid-off Tech Professionals looking to use their free time to earn money
2. Mentee Segment - University Students with no internship offers looking to enrich their learning experience in the working world
Defining the MVP and Prototype
To answer the HMW statements, I led a quick design sprint to ideate on the key features that our solution should include.
1. Profile Showcase - Catered content creators profile in a storytelling way to showcase their skills and market it to the student
2. Mentoring Platform - Content creators could get more money by offering the monthly mentorship sessions for students.
3. Subscriptions - Students can commit monthly subscriptions to mentors to support their content-creating activities.​​​​​​​
Designs of Prototype
After deciding on the key features, it was time for me and the UX researcher to start designing the screens. The aim is to provide a clean UI that includes the needs for both mentors and mentees. This means designing the layouts of profile showcase, mentorship tools and searching of relevant content and profiles.
Onboarding Screen
The onboarding screen includes an introductory video about our solution. This is because a video can convey more information in a shorter period of time. Moreover, it is easier to digest for the Indonesian population as English is more often their second language, albeit it is their business language.
Mentor's Dashboard
The dashboard for mentors will include the list of mentees and their profiles, published sessions and a schedule for all their activity on the platform.
 Mentee's Dashboard
The dashboard for mentees will include the recommended mentors and classes. They are also able to find a mentor based on the desired skills and industry. If they like the mentor, they can subscribe to them for private coaching sessions.
Profile Showcase
The profile showcase will serve as a resume for both mentors and mentees and the reviews of them by other users on the platform. For mentors, the showcase will also include their pricing plans.
Mentoring Tools
Mentoring tools hosted on the platform includes video conference calls, as well as integration of screen sharing and other industry-specific tools.
Final Takeaways
It was my first time working with a foreign team in this hackathon and working on a foreign problem.
1. Don't be afraid and go for it - At first I thought it would be difficult to work with foreign team members as I would not have as much on-the-ground knowledge as them. However, my inquisitive nature helped a lot in getting the background knowledge fast to work on the problem together.
2. Diversity helps in solving international problems - Even though the hackathon and problem are based in Indonesia, being in diverse team (of nationalities, roles, industries) helps in bringing in comparisons from other countries such as Singapore to develop a more comprehensive solution. This will also help in future-proofing the solution if and when the solution expands to other locations.
