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$15,000 left to reach the funding goal.
Project summary
I'm a student at the University of Hong Kong, independently developing Project Atlas. I'm fundraising $15,000 to secure professional software and security development before field testing in mid 2027.
Pilot: https://project-atlas-demo.streamlit.app/
Platform Guide: https://shorturl.at/xGkOK
User flow: https://canva.link/s3wje83tyx2h89z
Today's technology is capable of serving the most marginalized and hard-to-reach populations. For refugee students who struggle with difficult transitions and displacement, this means providing more conventional education pathways and opportunities. Considering our advancements, the place a child lives should no longer determine their access to education. That’s why I’ve designed Project Atlas, a platform that meets students no matter which country they live in or where they are in their educational journey.
Refugee children receive among the lowest levels of funding per student (USD 1,051, National Average: $2,460), despite being a group in need of more support. More often than not, displaced learners lower their expectations of possible opportunities and interventions. Project Atlas, therefore, is an investment into their future, and a commitment to the time and resources necessary to produce results.
I am asking for funding to help move Project Atlas forward by onboarding a professional software developer and security specialist to build a robust privacy and security system. It's crucial that the platform can protect the personal information of this vulnerable population.
Background
In October 2026, UNHCR estimated that 44% of the world’s 13.1 million refugee children were out of school last year. Interestingly, the transition into secondary school remains a large issue with enrollment falling from 65% in primary school to 32% in secondary school.
There are three main roadblocks to this that Project Atlas targets:
Refugee children struggle to integrate into their next school because of missing report cards, program certificates, and qualifications.
Data on displaced learners is fragmented, scattered, and not shared between stakeholders.
The field has a limited understanding of long-term schooling experiences, transitions, and academic/employment outcomes.
Direct Solution
My software addresses these areas by:
Supporting the storage and use of refugees' academic documents, preventing them from being lost, destroyed, or left behind.
Serving as a third party that interoperates where current organizations otherwise can’t due to constraints and restrictions on their scope, studies, and data collection.
Providing a long-term vault for refugee users’ academic history - reflecting a better understanding of their full, documented education-to-employment journey.
Top 8 Project Atlas Functions:
1. Portable Academic Records: Securely store and carry educational documents across schools, institutions, and international borders.
2. Personalized Education Profiles: Automatically organize academic histories, qualifications, grades, and educational transitions into a unified learner profile.
3. Cross-Border Curriculum Mapping: Compare educational systems, identify learning gaps, and help students transition between national curricula.
4. AI-Assisted Career Preparation: Generate personalized resumes, CVs, and cover letters using educational histories, qualifications, and employment goals.
5. Longitudinal Education-to-Employment Tracking: Follow consenting learners' educational and employment trajectories across countries, institutions, and years.
6. Pseudonymous Research Profiles: Support long-term research while separating participants' identities from the information researchers analyze.
7. Teacher Transition Reports: Generate structured academic history reports to help educators understand incoming students' backgrounds and learning needs.
8. Multilingual and WhatsApp Accessibility: Provide multilingual services and planned WhatsApp integration to reach displaced learners with limited technological resources.
THEORY OF CHANGE
3–5 Year Impact Goal
Refugee learners have access to personalized, continuous support that follows them throughout their education to employment journey.
1. Refugee Learners: Educational Continuity and Individual Opportunity
Expected impact: Learners face fewer documentation barriers, can communicate their academic backgrounds more effectively, and have greater continuity in pursuing education and employment opportunities.
2. The Field: Connecting the Education-to-Employment Pipeline
Expected impact: A more coordinated and accessible support system that reduces fragmentation, helps learners navigate transitions, and makes existing educational and employment resources easier to use.
3. Research: Building Longitudinal Evidence for Refugee Education
Expected impact: Researchers could better understand academic performance, educational interruptions, transitions, and eventual employment outcomes. This evidence could help educators, organizations, and policymakers identify which interventions are associated with better outcomes and where additional resources are needed.
Long-term ambition: Establish an independent refugee education research institute focused on understanding the full education-to-employment journey and translating longitudinal evidence into better educational programs, resources, and policy.
Describe why you think you're qualified to work on this
I’m a 24-year-old master’s student at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), with a Bachelor’s in Public Policy from the University of Maryland (UMD).
I am also a global ambassador for TheirWorld, an international education nonprofit serving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4: inclusive and equitable education. For the last two years, I’ve worked full-time with refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong at a local NGO, supporting and assisting with government and legal processes.
I’ve led, contributed to, and developed education and research projects such as:
Full-time Research Assistant in Public Interest at the University of Hong Kong’s Law Faculty
Race and education training sessions for UMD’s Public Policy faculty
Research support on collecting and measuring performance for Midtown Youth Academic in Washington, D.C.
Served as Student Representative on Delaware’s Every Student Succeeds Act Advisory Board (ESSA Education Initiative)
Research volunteer at UMD’s Department of Education & Health
Research volunteer with the Children's Medical Foundation conducting a benchmark study for neonatal care in China
Although I am not a software developer, I’ve created Project Atlas using VS Code, Streamlit, and a connected back-end database with Supabase to illustrate the design and features of the service.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?
Risk: Security architecture for a vulnerable population will need to prioritize adequate security measures, which could take longer than anticipated. The project will not launch if those security measures are not in place.
Risk: Success depends on learners finding enough immediate value in Project Atlas to continue using it over time.
Total funding request: 15k
5k - Minimum, which funds my living support while I work on this project during my Master’s program
10k - Contracting two professionals for software development and security expertise
= 15k Total
For full disclosure, the project does not end after this stage. Next, I anticipate increasing the funding goal for field testing if this goal is met.
Please reach out if you see an opportunity to collaborate
Email: Noelleruggiero2@gmail.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/noelleruggiero