Consultancy Team D: Stardriver

Brief

Stardriver are small start-up company who wish to integrate their interests in small data with their concern for the environment. They have identified postgraduate students as their target market because of their openness to the global economy, their education level and their future earnings potential. They also think that they may well share a common value base with their potential consumers but they are not sure about whether this is true. They have lots of ideas about how to integrate small data (personal data captured on local devices which can be actioned locally) and student ‘app' requirements.

The company wishes to start with combining personal activity data from mobile or ‘Fitbit' type devices with that from other activities, travel, studying, fitness, or planning purposes, for example. However they do not know what postgraduate students want, what data they are prepared to provide or which of these possible apps/uses of data would be most important to students

What the client currently thinks they want to know
In particular, Startdriver, whilst keen environmentalists and software engineers need to know the following:

Data
• What data do PG students give away at the movement?
• Are students aware of the data that they are currently giving away?
• Do students understand what the terms and conditions they sign up to for to use apps
• Do they care about who will use that data
App
• What do students want to do with the data that tracks their movement/activity/location?
o Are their differences between types of students or are there other characteristics of students that predisposes them to care more about their data use
o Does caring about personal data relate in some way to caring about other ‘green/sustainable' or ethical area
• Is an ‘ethical' app something that students would like?
o What would students like to be able to do with their app - use it for study or other purposes such as leisure, or both?

Overall they are very interested to understand postgraduate students reasons for preferences in app purchases. Are postgraduate students uncritical and unthinking when they make their purchases; are they thinking about the wider implications of their purchasing behaviour when they buy their apps?. They have not got time to find out but the team to do this work for them.