Lecture attendance is stressful, we just fixed it!

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Nigeria requires 70% attendance for a student to graduate. Today, most attendance is done manually and not only is time consuming but is rife with opportunity for cheating (other students simply writing in their friends’ names), lost records and an inefficient use of time that could be used to teach students what they need to learn.

Solving this problem is an urgent call. What our startup has done is to develop a mobile app “PASTECS” which helps the academia capture, record and process lecture attendance easily and efficiently.

This mobile app allows students, Lecturers and Academia to sign up and seamlessly mark lecture attendance using their mobile devices. It simply works by users downloading the App from Google play stores, sign up on the app and then start taking attendance during lectures in seconds rather than hours using the manual process.

At the same time, it offers lecturers and tertiary institutions the opportunity to capture and process annually over 600 million attendances within seconds rather than hours using the manual process.

Having received a patent from the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), PASTECS is currently doing a pilot test for PASTECS app for Android. Schools can take attendance with your mobile devices and the lecturer can see students who attended as well as those who did not attend.

How it works

• Schools, Teachers and Students download the app on Google Play store and sign up.

• Teachers do “role call” through the app (the attendance can be randomly taken at the beginning of class, middle or end so as to keep students motivated to attend)

• Only students who are within the defined area will get count as present. With GPS capabilities and facial recognition, students cannot cheat by having friends “sign in” for them. If the student is outside the defined area or if they try to get someone to sign in for them, facial recognition and GPS will block them and they will not be marked as “present”.

• Teachers can easily run analytic and compile data without manually counting records. No papers to carry around, no hours manually counting and no chance of teachers playing favorites to manipulate attendance records in students’ favor.

• The lecture attendance is held within the app so students have a reference and can see the lecture within the app.

• Students can ask questions and get a quick response from others using the app. No need to wait for a study hall or professors’ office hours.

• All data is secured. Only those who have prescribed access can access an attendance record privately and safely.

N.B: PASTECS appreciates your inputs as part of it’s product iteration and its interested in knowing:

  1. What was your experience interacting with the app?:grin:
  2. Was the app fun, easy to comprehend and use without you going through the manual?:ghost:
  3. Is the app resilient enough?:calling:
  4. Are there any bugs encountered?:joy:
  5. What do you think we need to review in order to make the app awesome?:ok_hand
  6. What’s the website and app’s blind spot?:telescope:

Also attached is a manual that should assist in understanding how the app works.

Kindly send your remarks to chuks@pastecs.com or simply comment here.

Do accept our warmest regards of the highest consideration as we look forward to your feedback and constructive criticisms.

For easy access, here are clickable links:

Website: PASTECS
Android App: PASTECS

Nuff Luv!

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You need to work on your copy. The text in the homepage is too much

If you want people to read it, try reduce it.

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Okay… Thank you for the feedback

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Noticed the link to the manual was not added to the original post. Do find it here

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Thanks @Suleman for liking the post. It means so much to the team:thumbsup:

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@Pastecs I see the pain you are solving for and think your startup has a lot of potentials.

As @wkyo said, you need to work on your copy.

Here is a quick sample copy. Hope you find it useful and hope it gets your creative juices going.

Start in bold (a bit bolder than what you have at the moment)

"Capturing Lecture Attendance is Stressful.

“We Just Simplified It”

Next, present your value propositions for different target segments. End each segment proposition with a call to action.

…"For Lecturers

"Easily capture lecture attendance. Know those that don’t meet minimum attendance stress-free.

“Get started / Learn more”

… "For Students

"Mark lecture attendance without stress. Quickly learn about those that were in the lectures you unavoidably missed.

“Get started / Learn more”

… "For Schools

"Effectively implement your school’s lecture attendance policy. Get quick feedback on problem areas. Stand out for academic excellence.

“Get started / Learn more”

… For Parents

"Easily learn about your child’s lecture attendance. Get assurance your child is getting the needed education.

“Get started / Learn more”

Once again, hope this gets your creative juices flowing. Speak simply and clearly to your target audience, you are already on track.

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Thanks for your articulated feedback. We would do the needful

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This application can also apply to a working environment where employers pay employees by the hour i.e. street marketing e.t.c. so don’t limit the potential.

I am actually interested in what you received the patent for? Facial Recognition or GPS Technology? or is it an exclusive right to process attendance for federal universities in Nigeria?

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Thanks for your insightful feedback on the array of opportunities that PASTECS service could be utilized in solving our local problems.

I would have loved to clearly respond to your question on what was protected by the Federal Government but I will love to first discuss with a legal advisor on what I’m allowed to disclose such that I don’t void the licenses by my action/inaction.

I will simply say that the “right to deploy/use” a software that addresses attendance problems in Nigeria based on the startups identified and verified technology stack, algorithm, logic,logo, designs and implementable/actionable idea as filed (and continuously updated) with the Federal Government solely belongs to our startup and whoever might be interested could seek to be granted a license from the startup or verify that its not infringing on our copyrights.

By copyrights, I refer to the patent issued by Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) and trademark approved by Ministry of Commerce.

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On the abuse side! I can send a friend my login details, then he uses an extra phone to take attendance for me at the lecture venue.

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I am almost certain the NCC doesn’t issue patents.

Also patents don’t cover things like “Verified technology stack” (whatever that means), “ideas”, or “logic”.

Are you trying to hoodwink us?

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Thanks for your constructive criticism

I think you will need to confirm your assertion.

Firstly, NOTAP is the Government Agency that handles patents for hardware related products while NCC handles patents for software related products “under literary works”.

Secondly, patent filings cover more than Technology stack, ideas, logic and what I stipulated in my post.

Finally, I am not planning to hoodwink you or any other netizens reading this post. I was just trying to state the obvious and do remember, I clearly alluded that I 'm limited by what I can share until I seek legal advise.

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Thanks for your observations, I presume that you have tested the app.

Like many technologies, there is bound to be some form of abuse.

The only way another user can take attendance for another user is when the lecturer requires “code attendance” from students. It is almost impossible to cheat the system by assisting your friends if the lecturer requires “Facial attendance” as all students will be requested to take a selfie.

Part of the use case scenario for “Code attendance” could be when verification is not very important like management/senate meetings and other meetings that just requires an easy to access attendance of participants.

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My Reaction

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Okk! The selfie part sha, are you adding a face recognition program to it?

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:grinning:#SharkTank Looks

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Yeah…the ability for app to uniquely recognize faces was incorporated. The team will appreciate if techies could help identify loopholes with these as well as other features.

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Facial recog…so u can’t give ur friend your logon details

Edit : OP is really trying to make it difficult for “school 2 guys” hmm… Nawa lol

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:blush::wink:

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would have loved to clearly respond to your question on what was protected by the Federal Government but I will love to first discuss with a legal advisor on what I’m allowed to disclose such that I don’t void the licenses by my action/inaction.

I don’t want to spend too much time on this but I believe you don’t have a patent. Share your patent certificate if you have one.

How can a startup founder not know exactly what a patent he has been issued protects? Secondly, any startup founder who has been issued a patent will know enough about Patents to know that to be granted a patent you must publicly disclose the details of the technology/invention that patent protects. You can’t tell me you want to seek legal advice on what can be disclosed about a patent you have already been issued.

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