SlashIgnite Academy

Through blended learning (combining online/offline training and apprenticeship), SlashIgnite Academy will help equip youth of Asia to be hirable for virtual professional jobs. We aim to work directly with tech-driven companies and schools to ensure skills taught are relevant to the industry needs, and directly link learners with available jobs.

We exist to bridge the job-skills-talent gap in ASEAN, starting with the Philippines which has the highest unemployment rate at 6.6%. We focus on training people for jobs in home-based virtual professions which has a lower barrier of entry compared to traditional BPO’s, but is in high demand.

What distinguishes our offering from others is that we will provide an on-demand blended learning program wherein one can access training content through mobile devices, anytime and anywhere. The program aims to focus on developing mastery of skills, solid work ethic and values, and a mindset of “continuous learning”. To do this, we aim to build our platform that curates existing training content from various sources. It also aims to give learners a structured learning design that provides them an option to achieve mastery either through online tests or real residential training with schools and industry partners. The technology aims to apply machine learning and AI to help make each training design more suitable to the learner’s needs.

We are currently preparing pilot programs with a school who can offer an accredited diploma for learners who go through this blended learning program that combines online and apprenticeship. We have also started signing agreements with Industry Partners who are in real need of talent to hire for their virtual jobs.

The program is aimed to be low-cost. For example, an online module may cost no more than $10. We aim to make this such in order to scale to as many learners as possible. With our pilot school partner alone, they have access to over 10,000 students who come from rural and sub-urban areas. We also intend to offer this to at-risk youth, persons with disabilities and indigenous people, and scale this program to the rest of ASEAN.

The Philippines has a 6.6% unemployment rate (the highest in ASEAN), which has increased in the youth and rural sectors. In contrast, the country is known to be a top BPO destination, and demand for jobs continue to grow especially in virtual professions. Personal interviews with CEO’s who are hiring show that the problem is not the lack of jobs or people, but rather the level of skills in the current talent pool. The jobs today demand more 21st-century skills of creativity, communication, etc. Sadly, these are skills that are not being enhanced in the current education system,

If we create a blended training program for virtual professions and offer an accredited diploma in partnership with schools and industry partners, it would encourage individuals in ASEAN starting with the Philippines to tap into the growing demand for virtual professionals worldwide. We have interviewed local CEO’s of outsourcing firms and they all agree that there is a need for focused training to help people become more equipped and competent for virtual professions. Once they tap this, people can enjoy benefits of earning globally without leaving home, and this would help lower the unemployment rate especially in rural sectors.

We focus on target on three segments:

1. College Students who are at least 18 years old

2. Fresh graduates and alumni of schools

3. At-risk youth / out-of-school youth, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities

We will sign a partnership with school and public government partners to help officialize this program. With the school partner we are talking now, they have access to over 10,000 students alone. We will deploy our learning through on-demand training online, and scheduled apprenticeship programs with our Industry partners.

Track enrollments / signups and number of diplomas / certificates issued. - 10,000 learners who went through our program in the first year of operation

We will implement continuous traceability of our learners. Through the help of our industry partners, they will help us validate if they would be willing to hire our learners after the program. - At least 60% of the learners who went through our program must be validated as "hirable" within 6-months after our training.

No one in Southeast Asia has yet implemented a model of blended learning programs specific to virtual professions. Our solution is unique because of the following:

1. We are working with a school who is willing to offer an official diploma using this blended learning approach. This school has at least 10,000 in its base of students and alumni and is recognized by our Education Departments.

2. We will utilize machine learning technologies to curate online content in order to personalize students’ learning depending on what job they want to get.

We are a team of entrepreneurs and educators. We know that what is most important is the actual learning of the student, more than the technology. We are also mindful and intentional that this intervention should reach the rural sectors, and minority groups such as indigenous peoples, at-risk youth and persons with disabilities. Hence, we are intentionally designing our program for this purpose.

There will be an online website that can also be accessed through Facebook. Southeast Asia has the highest Facebook usage, and the Philippines tops this list in the region. We have experienced that even in the rural areas, the fisherman and farmer has a Facebook account. Low-cost mobile smart phones are also abundant in the market. Therefore anyone can access learning content as long as they have this.

Our revenue model is on training fees.

We are currently preparing a pilot program with our Trade Ministry on August 11 and we charged no more than $10 per person. In the long run, our revenues will increase when our school partner officially promotes enrollment for the diploma course running on our blended learning program.

The factors would be the technology. 

Unless we create a way that we can scale access to content, our ability to reach learners will depend on the availability of our educators / trainers / industry partners. Hopefully with the use of scalable technologies (which also help aid learning), we can scale to as many learners as intended.

http://www.facebook.com/slashignite

We are a believer that with collaboration, partnerships and a common desire to make a difference, we would be able to push forward inclusive innovation that truly makes an impact.

We would be grateful to interact with your network of experts who can help us especially design learning technologies that improve the personalization of education for our students and help them increase mastery for the skills needed for the jobs they want. 

We are partnering with the SACT College System. One of the offices of SACT is BCYFoundation - a NGO with a mission to develop innovative social solutions for Social Development.

We also partnered with the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of ICT and some local industry firms into online outsourcing.

None that we know of yet.