What started out as a road trip with some high school buddies led to a discussion on educational issues. And that discussion eventually resulted in Duke senior Michael Arjona and three of his high school friends from Marietta, Ga. creating educational Internet software that could revolutionize the way parents interact with their children and their schools.
The web-based software-learnection Mercury- is designed to link schools, parents and students by allowing members of these communities to log in to individually customized pages complete with homework assignments, school events and other information.
Arjona, co-founder and chief financial officer of learnection, said that although the software can be used at all educational levels, it will be specifically useful in lower grades. "In elementary education, the parents are most interested in what their children do," he said.
Tamsen Webb, visiting associate professor of the practice in the department of education, said communication is crucial in the upper elementary and middle school years. "Parental involvement has a huge impact on students," Webb said. "If students feel that their parents know what is going on and know what is expected on a daily basis, it is a crucial component of students' success."
Arjona and his friends designed learnection Mercury to allow everyone in the school community to exchange information on the Internet.
The software is currently being tested at the Cambridge Public School District in Cambridge, Mass., and at Marietta's The Walker School, the creators' alma mater.
The four high school buddies created their business plan last June. Their company developed in August, and two of the creators have been working on the project full time since then.
Although Arjona is in Durham while the other three are in Cambridge, having graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they stay in constant communication through Instant Messenger and weekly phone meetings.
"I spend more time on this than on classes or any other thing in my life," Arjona said. "I look forward to when I can graduate and work on it full time."
After graduation, Arjona plans to go home to Georgia for a few weeks before heading to Boston to set up shop.
After internships at Coca-Cola and General Electric and his work on learnection, Arjona has seen the different sides of business. "I don't even completely do my own taxes, but I've been doing corporate taxation," he said.
Arjona said he sometimes feels his job takes away from student life, but sees his 40-hour-per-week work on learnection as making up for less-busy times earlier in his college career. "It is second semester senior year. You're supposed to have fun, have a last hurrah before entering the working world, but I can't pass on this opportunity," he said. "I still find time to have fun."
His busy schedule this year includes a position on the board of WXDU, where he is the business manager and has his own show Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m., classes and a position as an economics teaching assistant.
"Doing the business is a complete learning experience," he said. "There is no course at Duke called 'How to Start a Business,' but you can take basic econ principles and use all resources available. I've used the Duke econ degree as a basis."
Having already put this degree to good use, Arjona is not exactly sure where he wants to be in 10 years-he thinks he might stay involved with education or might go to graduate school to study economics or history.
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