Spring Break
A Winning Formula
New Web Site Aims To Offer Affordable, 24/7 Tutoring
Anna Kapranova
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: News
A new company, uProdigy.com, recently won a prestigious business award from MIT for their service of offering students affordable online tutoring 24 hours a day.
About a year and half ago, Syed Adil Hussain, the CEO of uProdigy, developed an idea that would launch him onto the map of corporate America.
"As a double major in math and economics at the University of Michigan, I saw the acute need for personalized help from graduate-level tutors," Hussain said.
The site provides students with around-the-clock tutoring in Math, Sciences and Business courses, as well as an online writing lab. By employing PhD or masters level tutors outside of the U.S., uProdigy is able to charge the students $15 per hour, a major alteration from the $70 to $80 per hour that Hussain faced when looking for tutors and many still face today.
On Feb 13, uProdigy was one of eight business plans to win the 2007 MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition's Executive Summary Contest. The competition is designed and run by MIT and sponsored by several successful companies. A hundred different business plans are submitted for this prominent award, but only eight are chosen as the best representatives of their chosen fields that vary from biotech, to energy, down to Hussain's chosen field; products and services.
According to the MIT100K Web site, the competition's mission is to bring together teams of people and provide them with a "network of mentors, investors and potential partners."
"Many of the other teams had great ideas but were still developing their products or services - we on the other hand already had a functioning business with promising growth prospects," said Hussain.
UProdigy.com is one of the first websites to offer all-hours, affordable online tutoring for college students. Their business plan targets college students with a cheaper and more easily accessible system than many other tutoring centers.
"We were stunned," Hussain said about hearing the announcement of the 2007 winners. "[This] is a high-profile competition that brings a certain legitimacy to our project."
The uProdigy staff and the MIT judges aren't the only ones excited about this service. Sonja Mertens, 2nd semester Molecular Cell Biology major, raves about uProdigy.
"It is a very useful tool, and pretty much anyone can benefit from it," she said.
Following their victory, uProdigy is looking to expand their business by drafting interns from the students they serve.
"We are looking for smart undergrads who are above all excited to be a part of a growing business," Hussain said.
Contact Anna Kapranova at Anna.Kapranova@UConn.edu.
About a year and half ago, Syed Adil Hussain, the CEO of uProdigy, developed an idea that would launch him onto the map of corporate America.
"As a double major in math and economics at the University of Michigan, I saw the acute need for personalized help from graduate-level tutors," Hussain said.
The site provides students with around-the-clock tutoring in Math, Sciences and Business courses, as well as an online writing lab. By employing PhD or masters level tutors outside of the U.S., uProdigy is able to charge the students $15 per hour, a major alteration from the $70 to $80 per hour that Hussain faced when looking for tutors and many still face today.
On Feb 13, uProdigy was one of eight business plans to win the 2007 MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition's Executive Summary Contest. The competition is designed and run by MIT and sponsored by several successful companies. A hundred different business plans are submitted for this prominent award, but only eight are chosen as the best representatives of their chosen fields that vary from biotech, to energy, down to Hussain's chosen field; products and services.
According to the MIT100K Web site, the competition's mission is to bring together teams of people and provide them with a "network of mentors, investors and potential partners."
"Many of the other teams had great ideas but were still developing their products or services - we on the other hand already had a functioning business with promising growth prospects," said Hussain.
UProdigy.com is one of the first websites to offer all-hours, affordable online tutoring for college students. Their business plan targets college students with a cheaper and more easily accessible system than many other tutoring centers.
"We were stunned," Hussain said about hearing the announcement of the 2007 winners. "[This] is a high-profile competition that brings a certain legitimacy to our project."
The uProdigy staff and the MIT judges aren't the only ones excited about this service. Sonja Mertens, 2nd semester Molecular Cell Biology major, raves about uProdigy.
"It is a very useful tool, and pretty much anyone can benefit from it," she said.
Following their victory, uProdigy is looking to expand their business by drafting interns from the students they serve.
"We are looking for smart undergrads who are above all excited to be a part of a growing business," Hussain said.
Contact Anna Kapranova at Anna.Kapranova@UConn.edu.
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