Mentee
Creators: Caroline
School: High School Students from Marymount School of New York
About this Project
Quality education is still granted only to a select population. Not every New York resident can afford a private tutor. Mentee believes that anyone can teach others.
Mentee is a non-profit pairing children from immigrant or financially insecure families, Title I schools, and schools with test scores below national averages, in New York City with a student mentor who tutors the mentee in an interactive, engaging environment outside the classroom.
Mentee not only pairs high school mentors one-on-one with mentees, but brings two mentees with two mentors in a cohort to engage in lively games and activities to inspire a love for literature and school. Cohorts meet in their local New York Public Library branch.
Tutors connect with student mentees via the Mentee app, designed for creating a safe, friendly space with decorative backgrounds, special effects, and tools for tutoring (including easier screen-sharing features with mark-up features for the Mentee) through video call. The app extends the quality education mentors provide beyond the lessons with access to tutoring anywhere, at anytime.
Mentee is a non-profit pairing children from immigrant or financially insecure families, Title I schools, and schools with test scores below national averages, in New York City with a student mentor who tutors the mentee in an interactive, engaging environment outside the classroom.
Mentee not only pairs high school mentors one-on-one with mentees, but brings two mentees with two mentors in a cohort to engage in lively games and activities to inspire a love for literature and school. Cohorts meet in their local New York Public Library branch.
Tutors connect with student mentees via the Mentee app, designed for creating a safe, friendly space with decorative backgrounds, special effects, and tools for tutoring (including easier screen-sharing features with mark-up features for the Mentee) through video call. The app extends the quality education mentors provide beyond the lessons with access to tutoring anywhere, at anytime.
Project Links
What the Judges are Saying
Great project, covers the topic well, and will be a great tool if further developed.
More implementation needs to be added to this project. Cool idea to start, would love to see where it is heading to next.
Caroline, I am very happy to see you pick this project. We all talk about having a idol or inspiration to follow, not everyone becomes a lincoln or gandhi or gates. It is very important to have a mentor who can guide you through various steps in your life and career, and your project touches on that. I loved the way you defined the problem statement before going in solution, and your attempt to design a page also :).
What could be even better if you can categorise levels of mentorship your site visitors, and also have a recommendation. While you are trying to connect mentor-mentees for betterment, you cannot solve world hunger, and your solution may piggy-back on a number of NGOs/institutions like P-Tech, careervillage, etc that provide help to students and people needing advice to do better.
I loved your initiative, and would love to help you take this further if you so want; whether you win or lose :) All the best.
What could be even better if you can categorise levels of mentorship your site visitors, and also have a recommendation. While you are trying to connect mentor-mentees for betterment, you cannot solve world hunger, and your solution may piggy-back on a number of NGOs/institutions like P-Tech, careervillage, etc that provide help to students and people needing advice to do better.
I loved your initiative, and would love to help you take this further if you so want; whether you win or lose :) All the best.
I think you have a wonderful idea to link free tutors with students in need. This will definitely change outcomes, especially in areas like math, where each year builds on the previous year. The next steps would be to define where you are advertising for mentors and how you are vetting the expertise and trustworthiness of mentors. Also, where is the tutoring taking place and how will they create a mutual schedule for the tutoring? These could be the next features of the app. But I like the idea to link students in need with personal tutoring!
