What is the name of your organization?
Wingspans
What is the name of your solution?
Pathways to possibility
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
A robust career platform that uses stories to model what is possible for students and adult learners.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Providence, RI, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
There are currently 103 million adults in the U.S. facing barriers to employment and upskilling. At the same time, America's job market is grappling with a severe talent drought. The tech industry alone could face a staggering loss of $162 billion by 2030 due to the talent shortage.
Wingspans bridges the visibility gap through story.
What is your solution?
Wingspans is the first step in a learner’s path to skill and reskill; in 2021, a study on storytelling reported a statistically significant increase in career aspirations in electrical-related fields after students engaged in a story about the field (Wen, J., Gheisari, M., 2021).
In a typical user journey, individuals take one of two story-driven assessments: a personality assessment, based on the Holland Code, or an experience translator, rooted in identity-reframing theory (Walton & Cohen, 2011).
The assessments match learners to high-growth and high-wage careers, ultimately honoring everyone’s life experiences and skills. Once they see meaningful opportunities within their reach, learners explore further. Within the site, learners access nearly 1,000 stories about work, organized into career, school, degree, and employer pages.
The stories are diverse, authentic, and not sugar-coated, and show that career paths often have twists and turns.
Newly empowered learners identify credentials necessary to pursue new paths, develop durable skills, make career plans, and build a personalized portfolio that tells the story of who they are. Ultimately, their spirits are enkindled as they reimagine their futures and embark on a career.
Link to demo: https://youtu.be/OONCOPeWN1M
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Wingspans is responsive to students from underserved communities and the robust yet overlooked workforce equipped with skills that were honed through diverse experiences rather than 4-year degrees.
Many low-status groups, including SES, minorities, and immigrants, are often seen as deficient (Valencia, 2012). These narratives have been shown to impair individuals’ confidence, motivation, and overall success in life (Bauer 2023). Wingspans uses stories to counter these stigmatizing narratives by helping these individuals reframe their identities as strong, capable, and confident.
The experience translator, in particular, is designed to help someone with waitressing experience, for example, see the value in this experience and uncover their hidden skills, including time management, customer service, and working well under pressure. The hope is, that after using the experience translator, they will realize that they have much more to offer than they previously thought.
Here are examples of stories on Wingspans that help students reframe their identities and see what they can be:
Jonathan Sullivan, a substance use specialist who experienced homelessness: https://www.wingspans.com/story/jonathan-sullivan/
Sabah Haji, an immigrant from Nairobi, working in the semiconductor industry: https://www.wingspans.com/story/sabah-haji/
Alexis Santos, a metal finisher: https://www.wingspans.com/story/alexis-santos/