ABSTRACT
Low vaccination rates, inferior-quality vaccines, limited testing, and a lack of funding forced many institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa into online-learning-only environments for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instructors scrambled to put classes online. Only in 2022 did some face-to-face classes resume. Unforeseeable and unprecedented circumstances forced university personnel to function with reduced budgets and without regard for the return to in-person classes. We taught, studied, and analyzed a cohort of third-year Sub-Saharan African students who spent their first two years of studies online. We describe the struggles they faced and what can be done to make up for their shortcomings and missed opportunities. We quantify the shortcomings through focus groups, an analysis of what parts of an accredited program would have fallen short, interviews, and through anecdotal evidence. Our findings can help those who suffered a similar fate. These observations can be applied to non-STEM disciplines. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, crowdfunding, has emerged as a hugely disruptive force within the financial landscape worldwide. Crowdfunding, the process of raising relatively small sums of money from the crowd, via the internet, enables entrepreneurs, particularly at the innovative and new start-ups stage, to access much needed funding, overcoming a "funding gap”. The growth of crowdfunding has been phenomenal. In 2019, an estimated €14 billion was crowdfunded worldwide (Statistia 2020) and the forecast is for the sector to grow to €30 billion by 2025 (Mordo Intelligence, 2020). Initially, crowdfunding gained prominence through funding creative and artistic projects, but over the last number of years, this appeal has spread across a diverse range of businesses and sectors (Bradford 2012 and Research and Markets 2022). In the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, crowdfunding offers entrepreneurs and businesses access to much needed seed funding, but also non-financial benefits in the form of market and product testing, media exposure and customer feedback. Crowdfunding is a relatively new domain for businesses in the hospitality sector. As noted by Belavin, Marinesi and Tsoukalas (2020), crowdfunding offers huge potential for the sector, who often face funding challenges thereby limiting new innovative start-ups, critical for the sector's long term viability. This case study examined how one entrepreneur in the hospitality sector, successfully crowdfunded an innovative business idea in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The case traces the idea and the factors that shaped the decision to crowdfund. Additionally, the case examines the benefits and challenges involved in successfully crowdfunding the business idea and closes with the entrepreneur reflecting on the key learning from the experience. The contribution of this case study is twofold. Firstly, it serves to highlight the potential of crowdfunding as a funding source of enterprise development, particularly among new, innovative businesses. Secondly, it adds to the current debate, as noted by Belavin, Marinesi and Tsoukalas (2020), of the potential crowdfunding in fostering entrepreneurship and economic development within the hospitality sector. © 2022, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All right reserved.
ABSTRACT
In developing countries, funding is a significant obstacle to receiving higher education. Brilliant but needy students cannot complete their studies since their parents are unemployed and their countries' economies are poor. As a result, the students' talents are not harnessed to their full potential. In order to help students obtain higher education and harness their full potential, governments provide student loans to students in higher education. The government provides loans to students through the ministry of education. The students pay back the loan with interest when they start working. Governments have been the sole funders of student loans. The emergence of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war have resulted in a global economic crisis. Because of the global economic crisis, the government's spending has increased. In order to help reduce the burden of government and thereby reduce spending, we intend to revolutionize the student loan program through blockchain and crowdsourcing. This work presents a blockchain-based crowdsourcing decentralized loan platform where investors will be brought on board to provide funds for students in higher education. The platform will allow students to apply for loans from investors through registered financial institutions. The students will pay back the loans with interest when they enter the workforce. The proposed platform will allow students to fund their education, investors will get interest on the money they invest, and governments can channel the money they put into student loan programs into other avenues. We perform a thorough security analysis and back the efficiency of our work with numerical results. © 2013 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This study aims to analyze the use of digital technology in Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise' funding in the post-Covid-19 pandemic era. This study uses primary data obtained through in-depth interviews with 7 MSME entrepreneurs from various business fields in various regions in Indonesia who have received or are currently receiving funding from other parties. The data obtained were analyze using the narrative data analysis method. The results of this study indicate that digital technology has been used widely and has a significant impact on MSME funding by various funding sources and become an effective means in assisting the development and encouraging the growth of MSMEs. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
With increasing funding for synergistic research and educational solutions informed by multiple disciplines (e.g., learning sciences, computer science), there is a need to build the field's interdisciplinary capacity and nurture the next generation of researchers. In this poster, we share our approach to creating a community of emerging scholars inspired by the concept of landscapes of practice and based on a design thinking process. We discuss our approach's key design features, affordances, and challenges. © ISLS.
ABSTRACT
The process of publishing printed books require initial capital investment from publishers, which limits the number of new book titles published in Indonesia. Additionally, publishers lack the funds to publish new titles due to the decline in book sales caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This research aims to solve funding issues towards book publishing, which is allocated towards printing physical copies. A business analysis was conducted to analyze the feasibility of the business model of the proposed solution and the unique value proposition that is offered to the market. A prototype is also developed as a proof of concept to demonstrate how the proposed solution would take form. The prototype was demonstrated to interviewees to gain feedback for evaluation, which concludes that the proposed solution has promising value to be used by Indonesian publishers. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes digital transformation in Finland from the perspective of a mid-sized university of applied sciences in western Finland, outside the capital city area. Higher education institutions (HEIs) compete amongst themselves, both locally and globally, in terms of student and staff recruitment, government funding, and research funding. In addition, networking with companies and other organizations is a key part of HEIs’ strategies and actions. We consider the steps that HEIs have taken toward digital transformation, the drivers behind digital transformation, and the factors that affect HEIs’ management strategies. Although the digital transformation process started over 30 years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a major driver of digital transformation in Finnish HEIs. The results of our case study show that an HEI’s funding is of critical importance and provides the ground for setting the performance indicators in HEI management. Finally, climate change and sustainability are factors that will further affect the higher education system. © Proceedings of the International Conference on E-Learning 2022, EL 2022 - Part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2022, MCCSIS 2022. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
A 2018 study of performance measures for the Utah Department of Transportation's (UDOT) Incident Management Team (IMT) program concluded that the program was cost effective and benefited Utah motorists. During the 2018 legislative session, UDOT received funding to expand its IMT program. To determine the benefits of expanding the IMT program, a comparison of performance measures for 2018 and 2020 incident data was conducted. In addition, data regarding the affected volume, the excess travel time, and the excess user cost associated with incident congestion were gathered. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic affected traffic volumes during this study, and statistical analyses were utilized to account for volume differences between the two years. Results indicated that the expansion of the IMT program has allowed UDOT to respond more consistently to incidents and respond to a larger quantity of incidents over a larger coverage area and in extended operating hours. © ASCE.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a reduction in business and routine activity and resulted in less motor fuel consumption. Thus, the gas tax revenue is reduced, which is the major funding resource supporting the rehabilitation and maintenance of transportation infrastructure systems. The focus of this study is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transportation infrastructure funds in the United States through analyzing the motor fuel consumption data. Machine learning models were developed by integrating COVID-19 scenarios, fuel consumptions, and demographic data. The best model achieves an R2-score of more than 95% and captures the fluctuations of fuel consumption during the pandemic. Using the developed model, we project future motor gas consumption for each state. For some states, the gas tax revenues are going to be 10%-15% lower than the pre-pandemic level for at least one or two years. © 2022 International Conference on Transportation and Development
ABSTRACT
This evidence-based paper will review the outcomes of a recently developed summer research program for undergraduate students. The Center of Transportation Research & Implementation (CTRI) at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSUM) created a remote research program for Summer 2020. Along with others across the United States, MSUM went under COVID-19 lockdown for the unforeseen future during the Spring 2020 semester. The university cancelled access to most campus laboratories and brought a halt to all experimental research conducted in these facilities. Moreover, a significant number of undergraduate students lost their internships for Summer 2020. With these two substantial changes, CTRI created the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. CTRI contacted a donor who donated a funding for a single undergraduate research project (pre-COVID) and asked to make changes in the funding process to benefit multiple students. With the adaptation approved by the donor, the research center asked the faculty to submit proposals for undergraduate research projects that the researchers can conduct at their homes. The proposals requested projects to employ 1 - 4 undergraduate students with a limited, supplies-only budget (<$500). The supplies of the approved proposals were mailed to the students mid-May. The students worked on their projects throughout the summer at their homes with online guidance from their project advisor. In Summer 2020, five research projects that were related to transportation, utility, and energy infrastructure were funded. Each project had a unique theoretical background. An important selection criterion was the potential for the project to be expanded upon into a full undergraduate research project in the 2020-21 Academic Year and that may lead students presenting at the virtual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2021. The initial findings of the project were presented to the research center via a Zoom conference call at the end of Summer 2020. Moreover, the groups that concluded their projects on time also presented in national platforms, including NCUR. The impact of the SURE program on undergraduate researchers were assessed via follow-up survey and meetings. This paper focusses on the impact of the SURE program on the students' technical ability, communication skills, educational experience, and future professional experiences. Additionally, the advisors provided positive feedback on their experience with the projects and undergraduate researchers. The initial success of the first SURE program caught the attention of the Undergraduate Research Center (URC) of the MSUM. URC adopted SURE as a permanent program and funds summer research projects, especially from disciplines that typically receive limited financial support. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
Research has shown that students on the autism spectrum are more likely than neurotypical students to major in STEM fields. Other research, on school children as well as older students, has shown that students on the autism spectrum can benefit from an environment where stimulation is reduced. The author's institution had recently designated specialized rooms for nursing mothers, parents with small children, and veterans. During Fall Semester 2019 the authors applied for grant funding to renovate a small, unused room on the second floor of Carlson Library on the Main Campus of The University of Toledo. Following recommendations in the literature and advice from the campus Student Disability Services Office, the authors selected lighting, soundproofing, furniture, and paint for the room renovations. They also obtained support from the Dean of University Libraries for the project. However, plans changed when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the United States in early 2020. The University went virtual from mid-March to Mid-August 2020, and all librarians were working from home. Sources of funding disappeared due to fears of an economic downturn. In the Fall of 2021, we were told there was internal funding available for this renovation. This paper reports on the authors' future plans since funding is on hold. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.