Scope & Schedule Management Economic inequality is a huge issue. A recent study found that the world's 80 wealthiest individuals own as much as the entire world's poorest 3.5 billion people. The richest 1 percent of the world's population control half of the world's total wealth. Footnote Many individuals, corporations, charities, and government agencies have projects and programs in place to attempt to tackle this and other important global issues such as sustainability, but there are many opportunities to do more. A grassroots group of college students has decided to work together to do their part in making the world a better place. The students are from many different countries, and several of them met at global conferences, through study abroad experiences, or on various Internet groups. Strategic goals of this group include developing skills for both college students and for needy populations, sharing information on existing products and services that promote economic growth and sustainability, and promoting entrepreneurship. Leaders of this group were reviewing some ideas for projects (all with a significant IT component) that they could do to support their strategic goals: Global Treps: Many people are familiar with the television show called Shark Tank where entrepreneurs (sometimes called "treps") present their business ideas to a group of investors or sharks. Several colleges, high schools, and even elementary schools throughout the world hold unique versions of a shark tank like event. You believe that creating a non-profit organization with one central mobilefriendly website/application to assist groups in organizing these types of events would spark even more entrepreneurs throughout the world. You would plan to hold several shark tank like events during the term of the project and create a site and applications to help continue developing more global treps. This site/application would include the following capabilities: Provide guidelines and templates for running a shark tank type of event. Accept donations from potential investors targeted toward specific schools or organizations wishing to host an event (similar to the popular www.donorschoose.org site where people can fund teacher's requests). Accept ideas for needed new products or services. Provide the ability for organizations to create their own custom site to solicit local participants and sharks, accept applications, and promote the winners as well as losers. Research ideas for a mechanism where a certain percentage of all donations and profits earned by contestants are donated back to the Global Treps organization. Provide an online version of the events by showing videos of contestants and live reactions of the sharks while also getting live inputs and donations from viewers. 1. Change the Laws Campaign: Launch a global campaign to change laws to reduce further income inequality and promote social responsibility. This project would also involve creating a mobilefriendly website/application that would include information about current and proposed laws, allow discussions of potential ideas to change laws, organize people to contact appropriate lawmakers, etc. 2. Wealthy Unite: Develop a system to enable the richest people in the world to provide their input on how they can make the world a better place. Provide information on what several people are currently doing (i.e., Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, famous celebrities, etc.) to promote philanthropy. Allow others to donate to suggested causes and recommend other ways to reduce economic inequality. 3. Global Smart Shoppers: Develop a mobile app and website that recommends products and services produced by organizations that promote social responsibility. Customize the app so it works in any country in the user's desired language. Work with large companies that do not currently sell products or services in certain countries to expand to regions in need. Allow small companies to easily add their products and services to the shopping network. You are a senior, live on-campus, and get free room and board by being a resident assistant in your dorm. Bobby, a computer whiz who funded a lot of his college expenses by building websites, will be your main technical guy on the project. He goes to your college and lives off-campus. Three other people will form your core project team: Kim, a new college grad now working for a non profit group in Vietnam; Ashok, a business student in India; and Alfreda, a student in the United States planning to visit her home town in Ethiopia for two months in a few months. You will hold most meetings virtually, but you can meet face-to-face with Bobby and Dr. K. as needed. You have all known each other for at least a year and are excited to make this project a success. You and your team members will do the work part-time while you finish school or work at other jobs, but you can use up to $50,000 total to pay yourselves. You estimate that you will need another $30,000 for travel expenses, $20,000 for hardware and software, and the other $20,000 will go toward organizing events, consultants, legal/business fees, etc. Your goal is to develop a fully functioning website and test it by holding four events in four different countries. You'll make improvements to the site after those events, develop plans to scale it up, and recommend how to transition the project results into a successful business. You decided not to include the idea of providing an online version of the event as part of the initial project as your sponsor and team decided that physical events would be most effective. You have also decided to limit the scope of this first project to provide the ability for 20 organizations to create their own custom websites. Your team members will screen the organizations and assist people in using the site to plan their events. You plan to hold four shark tank like events within four months, using your team members abroad to help organize and run those events, plus one at your college. Your semester has just started, so you plan to hold your event at the end of the term. The project will fund refreshments for the events and prizes for the winners, with a budget of $1,000 for each event. You don't think you'll get any donations via the new website before these events, but you'll try to have it set up to accept donations by the last month. You will create some short videos to show people how to use the site and provide suggestions for holding the events. After testing the site and getting customer feedback, you will make some changes and document recommendations for a follow-on project. You will also create a business plan recommending how to transition this project into a real business that can make a profit after two years. Assume that you would pay for a new website and account through an online provider. Bobby would do most of the customization/programming for the site, but you would consider outsourcing or purchasing services to provide some of the capabilities like accepting donations and developing the short videos on the site. You would also buy a new laptop and Internet access for your three team members abroad so that they could share information with their contacts in those countries. You and Dr. K. want to attend all of the events as part of the project, and you might include a full faceto-face meeting with the whole team if possible. Team members include Bobby, your IT guy; Kim, a new college grad now working for a non-profit group in Vietnam; Ashok, a business student in India; and Alfreda, a student in the United States originally from Ethiopia. You plan to outsource some of the work (e.g., purchasing laptops, developing a website feature for accepting donations, and creating videos for the website). Recall that your schedule and cost goals are to complete the project in six months for under $120,000