SBIR Phase I: A New Paradigm for Skill Development- A Training Platform Integrating Problem Solving and Mobile Programming to Create Peer-Led Skill Training for High School Student

This SBIR Phase I project creates an online integrated training program that combines problem solving and app development. Trainees will be able to create mobile apps to address challenges facing their own communities. Mobile apps have become key to addressing many pain points. Currently, skilled developers work with customers to understand problems and create applications to solve problems. Unfortunately, this restricts app creation to those that have access to development resources and understand problem solving techniques. The platform created in this project will democratize access to app development by giving problem solving and app development skills to high school students. Thus, it presents an opportunity to every citizen to create apps that can address their own or their community's challenges. This opportunity can have a transformational impact particularly on underprivileged communities where people have very little access to resources. Mobile app development is also a skill that has the potential for significant income generation opportunity. At the end of the training, students will be certified for their problem solving and app generation skill ability. High school students who have certification to prove their problem solving and App Development skills become highly valued employees in the work force of the future. This project creates a drag-and-drop tool that allows anyone to be able to create smartphone applications, as well as an online portal that explains how to use the platform. The app creation tool will allow users to (1) develop a smartphone app for multiple operating systems; (2) live test their apps on their mobile devices; (3) download their completed apps onto their personal devices; and (4) publish their apps to the app store of their choosing. The online learning platform will deliver multimedia content to teach and enable users across the country to be able to build mobile applications on this platform. The world's mobile population is expected to reach 5.7 billion people by 2020, yet only a very small number of these users are expected to be able program these devices. Thus, this project looks to build a tool that lowers the barrier to building mobile smartphone apps via a drag-and-drop interface, as well as educate users on how to use this tool.