In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Asia Initiatives has launched an innovative program known as SoCCs Buddies, aimed at bettering learning outcomes for the students in under-served communities in India. SoCCs Buddies blends our award winning SoCC (Social Capital Credits) system with a pool of mentors to deliver individualized teaching and English Language instruction. Fluency in English is considered an essential skill in India that influences both employability and wages. Our program also helps address the learning attrition during the Covid 19 lockdown and other disasters. An additional benefit includes developing their skills and preparing them to access global online resources from sites such as Khan Academy and Byju. Our mobile app will allow both teachers and students to login in and track their progress, and earn and redeem “SoCCs” within the app for various goods, services and recognition offered. Redemption items range from reusable menstrual pads, digital skills sessions, digital devices, and scholarships.

https://asiainitiatives.groupment.com/

• India
• United States of America

The primary technology used for SoCCs Buddies is a mobile app “SoCC App” (available on both Google Play & iOS), developed with the help of CampusGroups Inc. and Zoom. Prior to the launch of the SoCC App, our local partners and beneficiaries in India, Ghana, Kenya and the USA were manually tracking participation for total SoCCs earnings, and other program-related data through SoCC books and Excel sheets. Asia Initiatives would receive data in various formats from its local partners which would then have to be standardized to ensure uniformity across countries and regions. Our goal is to use persuasive technology for behavior change. The number of items and their values on SoCC Earning and Redeeming menus are tweaked to achieve the goals set by the community itself. With our App, we can now consolidate everything into one digital platform. This enhances our ability to manage our programs, communicate with our partners, all in one place. This digital transformation is allowing us to exponentially scale up our SoCCs model. The combination of SoCCs with Zoom, has also enabled us to bring distant-learning experience to underserved children in India.