Digital Compatibility Matching and Skills Validation System

WAVE’s solution is a reliable and cost-effective tool matching job seekers with employers - helping underserved youth measure their work-readiness skills and gain employment. It incentivizes skills development and competency-based hiring, creating a thriving workforce first in Nigeria, then West Africa, and then anywhere else it is used.

An increasing proportion of employers and educators in West Africa know that 21st century skills are critical for work-life success. However, employers continue to use proxies such as education level and work experience in place of competency. This not only disproportionately excludes low-income youth but also drives the demand for academic credentials as opposed to actual competency. This has created a cycle of schools producing graduates that lack the 21st century skills necessary for the contemporary employment market, aggravating the youth unemployment problem and reducing labor productivity in the Nigerian (and African) economy at large.

WAVE's accelerated training program has a positive track record in increasing the supply of the work-ready youth by delivering soft skills training at $170/graduate(a lower cost than average) that leads to higher incomes of $60/graduate/month (a higher impact).

In addition, WAVE's recruiting model has grown demand for low-income work-ready youth across more than 200 small and medium-sized businesses in Nigeria who have hired approximately 800 youth since 2013.

Target outcomes:

• 1000+ employers utilize compatibility matching tool/portal to hire 5000+ “opportunity youth” (17-35 out of school and out of employment) in Years 1-2
• 50% enrollment increase in skills-based training institutions

Beneficiaries:

• Unemployed youth aged 18-35 from low-income communities
• Secondary beneficiaries are small/medium businesses employing skilled personnel

Deployment will occur through a network of businesses, social enterprises, educators and recruiting agencies committed to skills-based hiring who will replicate/scale our model. WAVE will assess and validate low-income youth’s skills and connect them to employers who believe in our "Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill" approach.

Conduct survey with WAVE employer partners to identify how many of them make use of the Compatibility Matching Tool for hiring practices - 1000+ employers utilize compatibility matching tool/portal to hire 5000+ “opportunity youth” (17-35 out of school and out of employment) in Years 1-2

Use WAVE's monitoring dashboard to check enrollment rates at the different WAVE academies and partner replicator institutions - 50% Increase enrollment in skills-based/vocational learning institutions

WAVE's skills validation and compatibility matching system is an innovative solution to the problem of unemployment in Nigeria that shifts the focus of employment from formal schooling to skills for work-readiness. The system utilizes technology to measure and match candidates' skills with employers' needs. This is an end-to-end solution to finding employment for skilled but underprivileged youth.

Our technology arises from four years of user-centered, iterative design. To arrive at this solution, we worked with 12,000 youth in Nigeria, training more than 1,500 in 21st century skills and placing more than 800 in employment. We have dissected the concepts of competency and compatibility, and analyzed the hiring practices of over 200 employers, giving us an understanding of what our youth need from employers and educators to have a fighting chance in the 21st century economy. This system will take us a step further allowing us - and others - to make the workforce fairer and more inclusive.

WAVE is building a network of educators, employers and job matching platforms that are collaborating to promote competency-based learning and hiring in the West African job market. Our system will facilitate replication of our soft skills assessment and training approach -  which is designed for youth of low-income backgrounds. In our financial model our costs are shared among individual users, private sector educators and the government. Philanthropic support will enable us to create and deploy at a cost that is attractive to employers – whose interest is essential if the core practices of today’s work force are to be challenged.

WAVE sustains itself financially through a portfolio of revenue that includes: 

• Earned revenues from training and recruitment fees charged to both jobseekers and employers. This is a cost-sharing system between the two parties. Trainees are charged a training fee payable only after the trainee finds a job with a secure income. This training fee is equivalent to one month’s salary spread over a period of three months. Employers pay a recruitment fee equivalent to 50% of an employee’s first month salary, payable at the end of the fourth month of placement (after three months of payroll deduction). 
• Corporate training for existing employees of our employer partners, 
• Pay-for-performance training provision contracts with governments, a
• Grants from international philanthropic organizations

WAVE has identified the following limitations:

• We rely on external technical expertise (consultants and developers) which creates additional time and costs in turnaround. We hope to mitigate by working within networks, such as Solve, to work with others who share our vision.
• We need to employ data science to analyze and compare job match outcomes and create an objective measure of competency and innate talent. We will resolve this challenge by mining our experience with youth and using external expertise.
• We also hope to complement rather than oppose existing workforce solutions by scouring already existing talent and innovations.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWestAfricaVocationalEducationWave%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGe9PqJ7o-E3F1yi3GxtbEgZU6m0g

http://waveacademies.blogspot.com.ng/

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwaveacademies.org%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFDTibhKRDaqMgqBAmTHlNynXhKtg

Joining the Solver network will help WAVE unleash the potential of Nigerian and, eventually, West African youth in order to better their lives, boost the economy and build a brighter future for Africa. Beginning in 2013, WAVE has established a track record of improving the lives of disadvantaged youth in Nigeria, training over 1,500 unemployed youth and placing approximately 800 into entry-level jobs. WAVE would take advantage of the Solve network to create and launch its compatibility matchmaking and skills validation system, enabling it to extend its services to even more youth. 

WAVE's technical partners  include:

• Knack
• Dubai Expo Grants

Our funding partners include: 

The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Segal Family Foundation, Mulago Foundation, David Weekley Family Foundation, Echoing Green, Peery Foundation and Fossil Foundation

West African Youth Leadership Training Program

West Africa Vocational Schools