The Million
agency: POKE NY
In partnership with Droga 5, we set out to rescue and revolutionize the New York City public school system. The idea: take the most hated object in classrooms across the city, the mobile phone (which is currently banned from school grounds), and turn it into a learning tool that neither students or teachers could live without. As part of the Million program – named for the one million students currently in attendance in NYC public schools – students receive a free Million mobile device and earn points toward talk time, txt messages, discounts, and freebies based on their academic effort, attendance, conduct, and grades.
To back the pilot launch of the Million, we created a website to serve as the home for the 10,000 mobile devices already active as part of the program. We utilized the notion of “the Million” in conjunction with the logo to create a motion design piece which now lives as the entry to the millionnyc.com homepage. This short, narrated story explains in concise terms exactly what the Million project seeks to accomplish: the creation of a merit-based reward system that will encourage and entice public school students to gain a greater appreciation for their school work.
We also created a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines the full-scale launch and development of this extremely ambitious program. Deploying a network of a million mobile devices is no small task, but the possibilities for true integration into the education system are nearly endless and will only continue to grow as technology and adoption gain momentum. We designed a long-term roll-out plan outlining the potential partners available to increase the academic potential of the Million device, and the steps necessary to put an education-specific mobile device in the hands of a million students. If you’d like to flip through the strategy, it can be downloaded here (be forewarned, it’s a 25MB file and is very long).
To date, this highly ambitious effort has been awarded:
•a Titanium Lion, Cannes
•The Richard T. O’Reilly Award for Public Service, ANDY’s
•The Innovation Award, ANDY’s
•a Gold Pencil, New Media Innovation & Development, One Show Interactive
•a Bronze Pencil, Innovative Media Single, One Show
•a Gold Clio, Innovative Media, Clio Awards
•a Black Pencil, Integrated, D&AD Awards
•a Yellow Pencil, Integrated, D&AD Awards