Microenterprise Proposal

Introduction

Due to the increasing rate of crime on campus, UWI students feel threatened and in despair. This set of budding entrepreneurs seeks to alleviate this problem by implementing a comprehensive security system like no other.

This document contains a business plan that outlines the strategies and ideas derived from a background steeped in mechanical engineering and surveying. It consists of the basics of the idea, the perspectives and a description of the preliminary financial assessment.

Basics of Opportunity/Idea

You are walking home from school; suddenly you hear some movement in the bushes from behind.

Is this the start of an attempted rape or robbery?

What do you do?

Do you start to run or shout for help?

The Student Bug Personal alarm button works in the following way

The Student Bug unit is fitted with a panic button. If the student believes that they are in danger of a robbery, assault or carjacking they push the Student bug personal alarm button which is conveniently located on the belt around the waist or anyway the person wishes to carry it.

The Student Bug unit immediately makes a telephone call to campus security. They can then log on to the person with a desktop or laptop computer and identify the location and direction of the person on a moving map display.

A call to the student will establish if they have indeed been a victim of a carjack, mugging or robbery.

We believe: Nothing will stop an attempted crime, but a Student Bug with a personal Alarm button may prevent it from succeeding.

How does it work

Student Bug consists of two components:

A small phone like device which has the GPS receiver, GSM cellular telephone module, modem, processor and memory chip complete with its own antennas.

Our special software package with a very comprehensive street level mapping software which is loaded from CD onto your PC or laptop.

With the click of a mouse button, your computer dials up Student Bug unit, and it instantly identifies the precise location speed and direction of your movement on to a moving display.

It is easy to use as a mobile phone and requires no third party to interpret the information.

Market/ Customer base potential:

In a 1998 analysis of the GPS marketplace, Frost & Sullivanvi (F&S), a marketing segments and consulting company that monitors market trends in the aerospace industry, the GPS marketplace into aviation, marine, military, timing and land-based applications. Land-based applications include automatic vehicle, inventory and people locating and fleet management. F&S projected a compound annual growth rate in GPS of 22.4 percent during the period 1994 through 2004, with forecast revenues of $1.77 billion in 1999, $2.7 billion in 2001 and $4.8 billion in 2004. An updated June 2000 F&S report reflected actual revenues of $2.07 billion in 1999 and forecast revenues of $4.6 billion in 2006. Land-based markets accounted for $1.28 billion, or 61.8 percent of 1999 revenues, "a statistic not likely to change greatly through 2006."

The F&S report also states, "Established markets such as land-based and hydrographic survey and GPS-aided navigation have spurred emerging mass markets such as automatic vehicle location, fleet management and recreational handheld GPS navigational aids." It suggests that the following are the major drivers of the land-based GPS markets:

Land-based unit potential is unrivaled

GPS tracking technology engineers efficiency

Increased chip set production broadens GPS use

Falling price points open market to new users

Displays and operating systems contribute to use

Miniaturization allows GPS use in increasing numbers of products

F&S cautions that "there will come a time when a satellite navigation system independent of GPS will come to fruition" and that GPS companies and their products must be sufficiently adaptive to "expand their customer base by ensuring that their products can accept either GPS, [the Russian] GLONASS [satellite system] or new frequencies."

F&S concluded, "explosive growth