Online resource-pooling websites like Up Work, Stock Flow, and our Ojisu.com are transforming the way we work, learn, travel, and more.  According to the PEW Research Center, "72% of Americans have used some type of shared or on-demand online service."

An example of the digital sharing economy: Idea Scale allows people to share and vote for their favorite solutions to issues. 

The companies of this new economy tend to be focused on two things: providing a platform for sharing (ideas, products, services, etc) and fast, customizable service--both of these things are what we at Ojisu try to accomplish. All of our employees have already made it through the American education system successfully--a majority of them as study abroad students. We want to pool the experiences of these students in a bilingual environment to help Chinese students reach their goals in the same way our colleagues have. As for the on-demand aspect of our services, Ojisu's online homestay matching platform is never offline and we make it a priority to be there for our students with individualized 24/7 support.

       According to The Journal of Service Science, companies like us are moving the economy from a "push" model, where companies come up with products and traditionally advertise or "push" them on to consumers, to one where the pull of consumer's demand is the driving force. Open production platforms that use the internet to coordinate many different entities from disparate regions like Ojisu give both the demand from the homestay provider and the student maximum power. These "pull" economies are also defined by their ability to produce adapted products and services that serve localized needs, in the same rapid manner described above.

This ability to pool resources online to give better products and services that customers really want is propelling the modern economy, with the sharing economy is was valued at 15 billion USD in 2015. Though many questions about labor rights, contractor benefits, and the loss of more traditional agencies and forms of business remain, the digital gig-economy is marching forward to simplify consumers' lives. Ojisu is proud to be able to utilize the modern tools at hand in this way to bring our students and host families the best service for their homestay.