globalbridge EdTech App

The Brief

Globalbridge reaches over 120,000 students nationally - and counting. They engaged Nebula Labs to develop two native mobile apps for iOS and Android for teachers and students to use, to be launched at their first virtual event.

The Solution

The first versions of the app were needed in a very tight timescale – we started development in May and they were to go live in time for globalbridge’s first virtual event in June (Future Stars - which Nebula Labs was proud to be the sponsor of).

We worked on an agile basis in a series of sprints with the internal globalbridge backend tech and product team to develop the first version successfully in time for the event. Iterative improved versions were then released over the course of the summer, following the Agile Model of continuous product improvement, working in delivery sprints.

The features we developed for the app include: 

• A dashboard to highlight the most relevant opportunities, and LearnTube content integrated via the globalbridge YouTube channel
• The ability to view relevant opportunities, favourite ones for later, apply in-app for opportunities including college courses, FE/HE courses, apprenticeships, university courses, and get push notifications as new relevant opportunities appear. 
• Rich multimedia 'virtual CV' portfolio building: an in-app portfolio building functionality which allows users to upload documents, videos, photos, UCAS points, as well as listing qualifications and achievements in a structured manner, which enables matching to relevant opportunities via an algorithm.
• In-app real time messaging to allow teachers to communicate with students in a safe, privacy-respecting, GDPR compliant manner. Teachers and educators can send opportunities to students in class groups, as well as multimedia messages and links to allow for real time messaging and replies from students. Students can select a limited number of replies or emoji 'reaction' replies to respond to their teachers with.

  The more technical details include: 

      - Native iOS app was built in Swift

      - Native Android app was built in Kotlin

      - Both apps were built using CircleCI for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) to Google Play Beta channel for Android, and Apple TestFlight for iOS

      - Native apps built by Nebula hit the existing globalbridge REST API, developed internally by their tech team

      - Push Notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging, where Nebula helped their internal team modify their existing backend and integrate with FCM on a consultancy basis.