Digital Economy Project Reflection: Sustainable Development Goals
You need to write the second assignment, this is a reflection essay around 2300-2400 words. You have to write it according to the first assignment!
And the first assignment is a group assignment, in the first assignment: we are required to produce a digital campaign (pitching deck + website) presenting an overview of the concept for a new application of digital technologies to tackle a real-world problem in lines with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So we chosen to make an online learning website to help unemployed younth in the UK achieve financial success. Please read our slides (Attachment I uplpaded: Our Group Digital Economy Presentation Note). Please be attention: there are many notes, that is the most important!
So what you have to write(the document "Digital Economy Reflection Assignment Brief" I uplode ):
You are required to produce an individual, up to 2500-word essay reflecting on the application of the economy solution you proposed in your teams. This is intended to be an open ended review of concerns, where you have the opportunity to consider your own personal interests in digital economy and international development and to reflect on key contents of the course. You may focus on the suitable frameworks/concepts/theories provided in the course to be critical about the expected and real potential of digital economy solutions as well as their possible pitfalls. Few new digital economy solutions are absolutely perfect – we are happy for you to point out in what way the solution you have chosen may bring its own risks and shortcomings. Be as critical as possible.
In your essay, you should address the following points using the readings and multiple resources provided in the module:
- Explain the SDG goal(s) that the digital economy solution you propose in your teams is intending to tackle, and its rationale/scope of sustainable development;
- Summarise what the solution is about; how is value created? To whom?
- Reflect critically who the main stakeholders are, and how digitalisation transform/affect them; reflect critically about the strategies you may use to engage them;
- What are the key ethical considerations to consider when working with data and/or digital technologies in your project?
- Provide relevant policy/practice recommendations. What practical advice can you give for future/similar applications in the context you study or other locations? What possible negative effects policy makers or other social innovators should be aware of?
Assessment of this work will be based on the following:
Background and development of the topic;
The demonstration of an understanding of the key course resources and literature;
The ability to present complex ideas, informed by theory and practice, in a concise and engaging manner;
How arguments are developed and evidence to support them;
Use of suitable and relevant material from the course, available from the essential and recommended texts provided and course resources;
Essay presentation/format (length, flow, use of titles, spacing) and appropriate referencing (check the style guides in the Library).
The key issues you need to think about in terms of getting good marks are:
Keep it simple and to the point – you have just 2,500 words which means there is no room for anything that is not important.
It needs to be an engaging piece of work rather than a pure ‘academic’ piece of work – for example, think about how you present data (tables of statistics or charts or infographics), how it is structured (key headings, sub-headings, short sharp sections).
It needs to be driven by the conceptual foundations of the course – chose materials appropriately.
There needs to be a strong evidence base for the arguments you make;
The assignment needs to demonstrate that there is a clear analytical process underpinning what you have developed.
And there are some theories you have to use, I uplode them in the attchments: "Lecture 7 Stakeholder Engagement Online" and "Data Ethics Canvas", and other theories, like Revenue, you can search it online, there are many business model.
Please read documents carefully, if you have any questions, please comntact me as soon as possible!
THE DIGITAL ECONOMY SOLUTION
Student’s Name
Course
Professor’s Name
University
City
Date
The Digital Economy Solution
Sustainable Development Goals
Peace, prosperity, wealth, and a good environment can help improve people's lives globally. The United Nations has recognized the 4 aspects as essential for the survival of human beings and has created various goals that can facilitate their achievement. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a call to action for different global actors such as governments and global companies to implement various strategies that will enable the world to achieve peace, prosperity, wealth, and a good environment (United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 2015). The digital economy solution is a project that seeks to implement an eLearning platform that will tackle 2 SDGs. In this regard, the digital economy solution will help fulfill SDG 4, which is the goal of providing quality education, and SDG 8, which involves guaranteeing decent work and economic growth.
Quality education is an important investment for any individual. It equips them with skills and knowledge that they can use to improve their social as well as economic life (Kurilovas, 2020). As such, achieving quality education for every child and youth on the planet has been a UN goal under sustainable development. In this case, the organization aims to ensure that different individuals have equal access to quality education, which can enhance their economic outcomes. Under the goal of quality education, the UN proposes that by the year 2030, different countries should commit to increasing the number of youth and adults with skills that are suitable in the job market including but not limited to vocational, technical, and entrepreneurship skills (United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 2015). Achieving SDG 4 is important because it will help fulfilling other goals such as eradication of poverty and promoting health and wellbeing, which are important for sustainability.
Similarly, decent work and economic growth are important aspects of society. It ensures productivity and increased standards of living among other benefits. The digital economy solution will indirectly tackle SDG 8 by helping youths to enhance their skills so that they can become innovative, productive and diversify their skills, which will enhance economic growth. For instance, since entrepreneurship skills will be taught in the platform, according to Haldar (2019) the learners might be able to develop innovations that will lead to the creation of jobs that will enhance economic growth. The goal aligns with sustainable development by ensuring a quality improvement of people’s lives by tackling unemployment, and poverty, which will then enable people to afford decent housing and other improved living conditions (United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 2015). In addition, the project will directly provide employment to various groups of people such as instructors, and information technology specialists among others. Thus, the digital economy solution will help improve lives by directly and indirectly stimulating economic growth.
Value Creation
The project involves the creation of an online platform that will enable youths to develop their skills. Lack of skills has been a major problem for youths in the UK. Consequently, they have been unable to compete in the job market, which has resulted in high rates of youth unemployment. Moreover, the government lockdowns that have been recently implemented due to Covid 19 made it difficult for people to improve their skills (Haslam, 2021). Normally, people enroll in different schools that offer the courses they desire to pursue and join the institution for a specific period. However, due to lockdowns, it has become extremely difficult to enroll for any course as movement is restricted and most schools have been closed. Consequently, the internet is the only place that people have been able to access without restrictions, which makes it suitable for implementing a digital learning platform. The platform will provide an opportunity for unemployed youth who are seeking to enhance their skills during the Covid 19 pandemic. The youths will be able to search and enroll in their desired programs. The platform will partner with the top 100 universities in the UK to ensure it will provide quality education to the students. The project will benefit the youth by providing easy and cost-effective courses that can be accessed anywhere. In addition, timely feedback from the instructors will enable the students to improve their skills, which will then enhance their job prospects. Therefore, the project will be valuable to youths in the UK who need more education to improve their skills.
Stakeholders
The key stakeholders of this project are the investors, students, and instructors. Each group will be affected differently by the project since they have varying roles. For instance, the investors will provide financial resources to set up the project. In return, they will expect the venture to be profitable enough to recoup their money and make a profit after the project is implemented. As such, they run the risk of losing money if the project fails. The platform will adopt a revenue model that will consist of 3-tier subscriptions. The first tier will be free and will contain limited access to various courses. It will help provide a glimpse of the content in the platform so that people can decide whether it will benefit them or not. The second tier will be paid and will only grant access to a single course on an annual basis. The third tier will be premium and will grant access to all the courses throughout the year. The three levels will be adopted to ensure that the project will be profitable for the investors. In contrast, the instructors will provide their knowledge and skills to the development of the courses as well as teaching the students. Their main method of teaching in class will be disrupted and they will begin adopting new approaches to pedagogy that can accommodate eLearning in order to be effective. The current teaching strategies are suitable for the classroom, consequently, Keebler and Huffman (2020) assert that instructors might have a difficult time adjusting their strategies to accommodate eLearning, which will be the only teaching method on the platform. Similarly, students will also be affected by the implementation of eLearning. In this regard, being used to classroom teaching will cause them to view eLearning differently in that some students may have trouble concentrating on their studies. Since all the students will be using computers to access the learning resource, So, Chen, and Wan (2019) notes that they might become distracted by various features of the device including but not limited to games and videos, which can impact the quality of their learning. On a similar note, the same tools can assist instructors to enhance their lectures, which will help students to better understand the various concepts. Therefore, students, instructors, and investors are the key stakeholders that will be directly impacted by the implementation of the project.
The project implementation process will also use different strategies to engage the stakeholders. For example, instructors will be engaged through the partnerships with different universities that the project will pursue. Investors will be engaged through networking locally and internationally. Workshops, job fairs and venture capitalist meeting will be targeted in order to raise funds for the project from those interested. Finally, students will be engaged using social media. The project will utilize popular social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube among others to advertise the service in order to attract as many students as possible. As such, stakeholder e...