Melanie Bruno & Melissa Joannou

The University of Tampa

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary 2

Overview and Mission 3

Goals and Objectives 4

Products and Services 5

Marketing Plan 7

Operational Plan 8

Management and Organization 9

Information Provided by The Corporate Club 9

Startup Expenses and Financial Plan 10

Timeline 11

Appendices 12

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Executive Summary

Tibetans have spent their time traveling all across India, Nepal, and Bhutan searching for

food and shelter, since circa 1950. Refugee settlements have made amazing strides in the effort

to keep Tibetans safe and resettled while enduring these through times. With more than 120,000

refugees living outside of Tibet it is safe to say that many serious problems arise in refugee

camps every day.

There are 58 settlements in India, each settlement has varied conditions, however,

generally the settlements have improved a lot with time. When a setback occurs it can affect

many families in a certain area. There is also no record of the problems or how they are solved.

Keeping all of this data in an organized system will make it easier for solutions to be shared and

projects to be completed, therefore increasing the quality of life in a given settlement.

The average annual income per Tibetan refugee household is approximately 80,000

Indian Rupees per year which is about $1,300 USD with some variation across regions. This also

leads to a majority of the areas problems, and with so little money being made many young

Tibetan refugees are leaving their families and camps in search of options for growth.

Preserving the Tibetan culture is extremely important, especially in refugee society. Since

Tibetans have their own distinct language, art, music, dance, literature, architecture, cuisine,

calendar, and cultural traditions it is imperative that family connection stays close. The current

conditions make this somewhat difficult.

There can be painstaking difficulty for a group of caring first world people to understand

Refugee life and issues without living there or seeing the problems first hand. Utilizing Tibetan

Refugees and their time is the most effective procedure for this type of problem solving.

ConnecTibet will serve as the Universal organization restructuring of settlement issues.

After incidents are captured and cataloged, they are then advertised to refugees who desire work.

Once a solution is discovered ConnecTibet then advertises to specific NGO’s or partners to assist

and/or fund the projects to be completed. Thus, creating jobs and empowering refugees to be

self-sustainable and live a more meaningful life in their misplaced home.

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Overview and Mission

ConnecTibet currently consists of two members who desire to improve the living

conditions inside the Tibetan Refugee Settlements, and encourage younger generations to stay

involved in the culture of Tibet. The ultimate goal of this Refugee Incident Management System

is to provide a consistent organizational structure to the day-to-day operations of a given

settlement.

We will provide a hosted cloud based ITIL platform that utilizes an Incident

Management software to receive and catalog incidents that are reported. Refugees and Outside

Resources will register with ConnecTibet through the settlement officer. Since some areas of

settlements may not have strong connection to internet, SMS Text was the most scalable option.

Refugees will be able to report incidents via SMS Text. Those incidents will be cataloged by

severity and priority, which, will then be advertised via SMS Text to the registered individuals.

Refugees and outside resources can then respond via SMS Text to the “work request” with either

a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. This programming allows for root issues to be discovered and addressed in

refugee environments. Once root issues are addressed, and life on settlements improves at an

increasing rate, refugees can begin their search for resettlement. The improved living conditions

and availability for work will allow the youth of Tibet to stay closer to their families while

earning an income.

Select problems are addressed by utilizing the human resources and their asset of “time”.

Refugees, although many are employed, have time that can be utilized towards improving

conditions. Tibetans will be compensated to help with issues around the settlements thus

bringing families closer together and creating a community work ethic. ConnecTibet’s mission is

to provide the refugee population with a self-sustaining model that improves the living

conditions and provide opportunities for work.

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Goals and Objectives

ConnecTibet’s goal is to improve settlement conditions through job opportunity and self-

sustainability, while, simultaneously eliminating the need for younger generations to leave their

families with the intent of discovering opportunities for employment. We want to make the

refugees feel hopeful and useful to their communities. Our intent is to make their settlements a

place where they see opportunities, while preserving their Tibetan culture. Keeping families and

the community together in the settlements will help accomplish this.

ConnecTibet’s overarching objective is to improve living conditions. We also seek to:

utilize existing methods and technologies to speed deployment and provide scalability, empower

refugees to leverage available time for productive purposes, and encourage youth to stay. We

strive to discover the root of settlement issues and include the refugees on eliminating these

issues to prevent recurrences. This will be accomplished by prioritizing these incidents into

categories of severity and importance, therefore making solutions more efficient and effective.

Having this data in our system will also help the outside communities learn what Tibetan

refugees struggle with the most, which, can create more support to help them. Helping refugees

help themselves while having records of it all can create everlasting change to their lives.

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Products and Services

Refugees have time that can be spent using their skills to fix and eradicate a multitude of

problems within their settlements. All they need is a way to allocate the severity and priority of

issues which will be handled through an ITIL management system. Refugees skill sets and

abilities will be utilized to address certain issues. Outside resources such as nonprofits, funding,

and supplies will also be utilized.

ConnecTibet will work through cloud based management systems. Hundreds of

corporations all across the globe implement ITIL management systems into their practices. By

utilizing a software that already exists we can harness the organizational structure without the

time and money it would take to build one ourselves. ITIL stands for Information Technology

Infrastructure Library, it is a way to select, deliver, plan, and support IT services in corporations.

This software can absolutely be applied to the refugee situation. By hiring a application

developer we can create a software that resembles social media where a notification will pop up

if the refugee has skill sets that qualifies for a certain job. There will be a certain amount of

workers needed and comes as a first come first serve basis once confirmed through the app.

When a problem ‘pops up’ on the app it will show the severity of problem, address and

time slot (See figure 1 in Appendices). Wage will depend on the severity of the issue and will be

set to a certain amount that the individuals are aware of when they first receive a notification.

This application lets the refugee receive notification of job opportunities around settlements or in

the local area, and also keeps track of their timesheet (money for each job) and efforts (star

rating).

Refugees who do not possess WIFI can utilize the SMS texting option. The refugee can

register their phone numbers with the settlement officer as well as their skill sets. These numbers

and skills are logged into the ITIL database. They will then receive texts when their skill set

matches a job in their local area. The text states the problem and how many people are needed.

By replying ‘yes’ or ‘no it will confirm their spot for the job and guarantees pay post project (See

Figure 2 and 3 in Appendices).

Outside resources such as opportunities for funding as well as supplies needed for

projects will also register with settlement officers which can be done online or in person. They

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will be notified when a problem occurs that has a necessity for the things they are providing.

These issues can be less severe such as plumbing, or even masonry to more severe issues like

reports of criminal acts, emergency medical assistance, or fire/ earthquake repair and handling.

We understand that there are many underprivileged refugees who may not possess skill

and abilities that are needed to assist in certain problems. To combat this issue we created an on-

site observation option to teach refugees desired skill sets. The individual can sign up through the

app and state what skills they are interested in learning and when a job matches those skill sets it

will invite the individual to come and observe others at the project. This will also allow only a

few individuals to come to the job site and will work as a first come-first serve basis. Instead of

incentivized pay, we created a point system where every time they observe a job that requires a

skill they are trying to obtain, they earn points toward that skill. Amount of points will depend on

the severity and level of expertise needed for the problem being solved. Eventually, the

individual will reach all the points needed and then will be qualified to report to future jobs as a

worker who gets paid and not as an observer (See Figure 4 in Appendices).

Creating this product and service will leverage the skill sets that the Tibetan refugees

have and create sustainability in their new lives. Instead of having third-parties help eradicate

their problems, we are creating a self-empowerment to help them to rise to the occasion and

create opportunities. This also might help eliminate younger Tibetan’s leaving the settlements

and their families to find work and will help keep their culture alive until they can return back

home.

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Marketing Plan

Once our application is developed we would start to market our idea through social

media. This could be created through ad-words or advertisements on social media platforms.

This will attract a younger audience that may be interested in helping expand our product and

gain attention to our cause. A lot of people are always looking to help change the world but don’t

know where to look. A company called Change.org and sends subscribers an email every day

listing ways they can help make a change. It creates awareness and lists how many supporters it

has. Next, we would get developed businesses attention to help a great cause. This will enable us

to crowdsource for our funding through developed corporations. Many corporations these days

like to support a cause so we would reach out to them and network to get the support we need

and in return giving back the satisfaction to corporations of helping a great cause. Crowdfunding

can also be accomplished using online websites such as gofundme.com or even kickstarter.com.

Our largest marketing strategy would be targeted towards nonprofits. They are a huge asset when

it comes to our idea and will help to bring the universal empathy needed to make this a reality.

Meetings will be scheduled with multiple nonprofits that would explain the benefits to them and

our mission and help expand both of our social entrepreneurship endeavors. Benefits to them

would include advertising on our social media app and website as well as fundraising events.

Examples of Possible Funding Organizations & Websites The Tibet Fund Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre, Darjeeling. LHA Charitable Trust GoFundMe.org Kickstarter.com Savetibet.org Tibetheritagefund.org Tibetrelieffund.co.uk

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Operational Plan

1. Create crowdfunds to raise awareness from individuals and NGO’s as well as monetary

resources

2. Purchase ITIL Incident Management System (OTC/Monthly)

3. Purchase Cloud Hosting service (Monthly based upon usage)

4. SMS Texting/Mobile App

5. Configure services for refugee incidents

6. Deploy system throughout settlements utilizing the CTA appointed settlement officers

7. Register Tibetan Refugees and Outside resources a.k.a NGO’s Non-profits with

settlement officers based on skill sets.

8. Begin inflow of incidents

9. Catalog incidents based off of severity.

10. Prioritize incidents based off of the effect it has on people and the settlement

11. Discover solutions

12. Advertise to outside resources and refugees via SMS texting where they can then reply

(Yes /No) stating whether or not they would like to assist

13. Complete project, pay refugees, satisfy terms made with specific NGO’s (a.k.a

advertising etc.)

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Management and Organization

ConnecTibet consists of two students from The University of Tampa with different

experiences, work and academic backgrounds. Melanie Bruno is our Chief Executive Officer

who controls much of the marketing and technological processes. Melissa Joannou is our Chief

Operations Officer who controls international connections, communications, and operational

activities. This diversity enables us to approach situations from a variety of perspectives and

constantly challenge the status quo. The individual skills and abilities of each member are

utilized in their most effective way to establish synergistic relationships within our team.

ConnecTibet models the collaborative mindset and behavior it strives to develop in the

settlements.

Information Provided by The Corporate Club

“Career and Status of Nepal’s Tibetan Youth 2015”

[417 Respondents Surveyed ] Family Income Approx. 47% (213 respondents) do not know the monthly income 17% (81 respondents) did not provide a response. 30% (48 respondents) = Rs. 40,000-59,999 25% (40 respondents) = up to Rs. 19,999 21% (35 respondents) = Rs. 20,000-Rs. 39,999 Migration Nearly three-fourth intend to leave Nepal Around 42% want to return to Nepal while one-fourth inclined towards staying abroad. 79% cited their intention “To work” With just above one fourth (28% of total employed) youths are employed as part timers show need of job among them.

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Start-Up Expenses and Financial Plan 1

ConnecTibet

Design, Development and Operational Budget

One Time Expenses On-going Expenses (Monthly) Notes

Hours Expenses (in

US$) Hours/Seats Expenses (in

US$)

Design Phase

Requirement Capture 400 $16,000 - -

Vendor/Software Selection 100 $4,000 - -

Document Design & Configuration 500 $20,000 - -

APaaS Subscription (Incident Mgmt System) 5 $375 - - Seats

SMS Distribution and Response Service - $100 - - Bulk licensing

Proof of Concept Dev & Testing 250 $10,000 - -

Phase Totals: 1,255 $50,475 - -

Build

Configure Production Systems 500 $20,000 - -

Production Testing 400 $16,000 - -

Training 400 $16,000 - -

Phase Totals: 1,300 $52,000 - -

Run APassS Subscription (Incident Management

System) - - 10 $750 Seats

SMS Distribution and Response Service - - - $300 Bulk licensing

Help Desk Support - - 160 4800 $30 per hour negotiated rate

Operational Totals: $5,850

1 Pegged average bill rate which we feel is pre-negotiation. Prices will change due to the low cost of utilizing technicians that are already in India. Cognizant, and Infosys.

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Notes:

(1) Assumes one site with $3,000 Refugees

(2) Professional services were calculated at an hourly rate of $40

(3) Licensing Fees were calculated at monthly rate of $75 per seat

Timeline

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Appendices

Figure 1

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Figure 2

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Figure 3

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Figure 4