VocatiNest

Youth unemployment has been a major problem in Indonesia, currently representing 18% of 7 millions people unemployed. Despite the government's effort to reduce youth unemployment through improving vocational schools, the unemployment data shows that the grim future still lays ahead for many Indonesia’s vocational school students, with such graduates making up the greatest portion (12%) of the unemployment.

We would like to address those three causes through an Artificial-Intelligence-based online training and job platform, VocatiNest. It provides end-to-end services, including integrated personality & cognitive tests to help the students comprehend their strengths and improvement, tailored digital resume, job and training matching features.

Our missions are to support 5 millions of Indonesia vocational students and 1.7 million graduates annually in addressing their job-fit confident issues, solving skill gap problems by consolidating their competencies or taking necessary actions to improve themselves. Hence, we aim to create societal impacts on unemployment rate reduction.

We identified the underlying causes worsening the unemployment problem among the vocational school graduates. First, given the pressure to enter the workforce as early as 18 yo to support their low-income family, vocational students face difficulties to assess their capabilities and potential to find the right job. Consequently, they just apply for jobs that their seniors or friends applied for, and often are failed. Even if they get a job, they would face challenges to keep up in the job. Second, rarely do vocational students have knowledge of the current growing industries, considering insufficient information from the school and teachers. Third, the stigma of not-ready-to-work vocational school graduates that employers hold due to asymmetric information on students’ soft skills. The employers therefore are hesitant to recruit vocational graduates and putting higher job requirements than needed.

We would like to address the underlying causes through an Artificial-Intelligence-based online job and training platform, VocatiNest. Our mission is to support the vocational students and graduates to be able to understand their strength, hence they could take necessary actions to improve themselves, to get the suitable jobs, or even shift a gear to go for four-year education level.

Especially during these pandemic times, there are more vocational graduates becoming vulnerable: getting laid-off, losing confidence and requiring more skills to catch up with industry needs. This situation makes VocatiNest’s values more relevant to the students.  

VocatiNest has three major features:

-VocatiTest: an AI-based identification test to help the students comprehend their strengths and improvement areas.

-VocatiJob: a job matching platform based on students’ cognitive strength. It helps students create a tailored application for different types of jobs. This feature will also help the employer to find the right talent and advertise the job openings to the targeted and relevant pool of vocational graduates.

-VocatiTraining: an AI-based integrated training portal by matching student needs with relevant trainings and experienced trainers. With the COVID-19 situation, vocational students need tailored trainings now more than ever.

VocatiNest is working to improve the linkage between vocational graduates and employers. Our main target group is the Vocational Schools students and graduates living in urban and peri-urban areas. The employers which need vocational skills will be our main stakeholders. Our solutions address the vocational graduates who are not in employment, the predicted high number of vocational graduates who lose their jobs due to COVID-19, and vocational students (5 millions total every year) who encounter unique challenges and difficulties over 3 years of their vocational school journey. Based on our interview with selected students and graduates, they are not confident enough on their potential, struggling to understand their strength and the suitable jobs for them, and feel they have a lack of soft skills (communication, problem solving, critical thinking).

In Indonesia, vocational students are perceived as the second class by the society. Vocational students are usually coming from the low-income family and choose the vocational high school because they don't see themselves able to pay for the four-year education level. That is the main reason they have a lack of confidence in their capabilities. We map the segment of our target population, shown on the picture below.

With VocatiNest, the vocational students and graduates, who are mostly coming from the low-income families, can access more suitable jobs. Especially during these pandemic times, there are more vocational graduates becoming vulnerable: getting laid-off, losing confidence and requiring more skills to catch up with industry needs. Through our technology and strong partnership with private sectors, VocatiNest will equip the marginalized vocational school students and graduates with the right skills, from the soft skills to technical skills, for them to catch up with industry needs.

Vocatinest has integrated talent management features for vocational students and graduates that different compared to other platforms. Three main features in Vocatinest are Vocatitest, Vocatijob, and Vocatitraining. First is Vocatitest. The feature helps the students and graduates in identifying their soft skills and hard skills by using an AI Engine. The engine uses a combination of psychometric tests and recommendation systems. The second feature is Vocatijob. By using this feature, users can be matched with companies or industries needs. The engine is able to group the users according to their characters and competencies so the recruiter can easily find the talent. The third feature is Vocatitraining. The feature connects users with experienced trainers. Vocatitraining uses AI Engine which is able to identify the  training modules suitable for user's needs based on the profile obtained at Vocatitest. Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic requires companies to quickly adapt to the new normal. By using Vocatinest, companies can find high quality talents quickly according to their needs. On the other hand, companies can easily improve workers or prospective workers by using the training features provided in Vocatinest.

Vocatinest has three main features namely Vocatitest, Vocatijob, and Vocatitraining. Every feature on Vocatinest is integrated and has a different AI engine. The first engine is the Vocatitest AI Engine. The engine uses an artificial intelligence engine that is able to identify the characters, soft skills, and hard skills of the user. AI Engine Vocatitest uses as a portal for users to provide information. After the information is received, the AI Engine analyzes the information and then provides conclusions and recommendations. The form included in the Vocatitest AI Engine includes a Psychometric test. The second engine is the Vocatijob AI Engine. The machine can group and match users to the needs of the company. Vocatijob AI engine categorizes users based on test results obtained on the Vocatitest AI engine. The results of the grouping are in the form of a catalog that makes companies able to find talent following the needs of the company. Then, the last engine is Vocatitraining AI Engine. The engine provides training module recommendations that accommodate the needs of the user. The results of the training module are connected to the results obtained at Vocatitest, and it is utilized to increase opportunities for users to get jobs. Details on how Vocatinest works can be seen in the following link: Currently Vocatinest Beta can be accessed on the www.vocatinest.com. The algorithm used at Vocatinest always improved so that it can provide accurate results for users, both on the talent and recruiter side.

The AI Matching and Recommendation system has been widely used in job matching platform, with one of the famous one built by Linkedin which can be accessed in this link: https://telemedicina.unifesp.br/pub/Events/2013-05%20-%20WWW2013/www2013/www2013.org/companion/p963.pdf

On top of that, we also try to incorporate the psychometric test result of the job seeker to be further matched with the specification has been set by the employers through our Role Based Analysis.

We aim to create societal impacts on unemployment rate reduction and average income increase, with the spill-over effect on the reduction of poverty rate. We lay out our Theory of Change in the diagram below, from inputs, key activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts.

Our solution is specifically designed to help vocational school students and graduates to improve their skills and get a job in a rapidly disrupted job market using artificial intelligence to inform students and job seekers about the current and future skills trend. Since January 2020 we have reached out to 15 vocational schools in 8 cities and registered 1,300 students to try our solution. In one year, our goal is to reach out to 120 vocational schools in 20 cities, especially in cities outside Java and around industrial estate like in Bekasi, Karawang and Morotai that usually witness rapid economic development but failed to gain benefit from it as many companies prefer to recruit employees with better skills from major cities or from well-known vocational schools. In total we expect to reach out to 15,000 vocational school students and graduates during 2020. 

In five years, we see ourselves helping 1.5 million vocational school students and graduates to understand their talent and passion, and to improve their skills or re-skills themselves to adapt with what the industry needs. 

Within the next one year our goal is to partner with 4 industrial estates and 200 companies in and outside of Java Island to recruit at least 10,000 vocational school students and graduates from areas around the industrial estates. Within five years our goal is to train 1.5 million people and help in total 2 million vocational school students to get a job. We believe our training modules and talent assessment could make vocational schools graduates more competitive in the job market and in turn help to decrease unemployment among vocational school graduates. By helping vocational school graduates to be more productive and to get job our solution will improve the number of aspiring of middle class, while at the same time also increase economic activity as labor productivity will also increase, especially in area near industrial estate that in the last two decades facing stagnation of labor productivity but increasing labor cost because of incremental increase of minimum wage. These productive employees will force others to also improve their productivity, creating a multiplier effect that will be beneficial for the economy in general.

Main barriers in the next year is financial, technical and cultural barriers. To develop the robust artificial intelligence and talent assessment tools we need significant investment for research and development, and to recruit highly talented data scientist, machine learning specialist, programmers, human resources specialist and gamification experts. In the first year we believe we need at least USD 500,000 investment to build a robust system. The second barrier is technology. While HR assessment is a common feature, designing a robust artificial intelligence to match assessment results with the prediction of future job and skills trends and then recommending potential impactful training is something that is very challenging. We also aim to build a robust talent pool where employers would be given a number of job seekers that are not only highly talented but also have passion and soft skills compatible with what the employer needs. Lastly, converting the internet use for social media culture into more of self-development might be difficult in the first year.

Within five years we expect that the main barriers will come from policy or legal front. Currently Indonesia doesn’t have a clear policy on personal data protection. As the parliament is working to draft a personal data protection Bill, if the Bill contained restrictive stipulations on personal data, our solution might need additional licensing and permit from the Government, including giving the access to Government to our database which could be problematic for us.

For financial barriers we plan to collaborate with industrial estate by providing them with recruitment and training services. We are in communication with several industrial estates in Bekasi and Karawang. In addition to that, to lower cost we will open internship program especially for data science and computer science students while it give us access to cheap labor we also contribute to their professional development and the experience could stimulate more creative innovation in the field. Recruiting internship could also help us overcome technological barrier as we will get access to the new and innovative approach from these students. To overcome cultural barrier, we plan to collaborate with schools and NGO working in education to develop an ecosystem conducive for online self-development. Hybrid approach using both offline and online method is still needed in the first year.

On the policy front, we plan to support current initiatives driven by civil society organizations and the business community to push for the parliament to use the global standard in drafting personal data protection Bill. We plan to also conduct a digital literacy campaign to support the argument that personal data protection is our shared responsibility and not only electronic platform responsibility.

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In total, there are 23 people working for Vocatinest.

2 full time founders, 2 part time founders, 1 part time management team, 3 full time staffs, 3 contractors, and 12 HR Expert in Residence.

The founders team came from various background, consulting, government, digital transformation, and software engineers. Given the diverse and collectively enriching the team, we believe that we can further develop the solution by incorporating the well rounded perspectives. We also have secured a part-time employment from a PhD Candidate in psychology who has been working in various HR role for 15 years that could be a big kick for us to tap into the recruiting industry.

We have currently partner with several stakeholders. We have partner with other training provider such as aedu that we will further collaborate to create training content. We have also engaging a potential collaboration with Jababeka, the largest industrial estate in southeast asia, that we can pilot our full-fledged services to reach the beneficiary of vocational school student and graduates that lives around the estate.

We picture our business model in attached business model canvas.

Our revenue model and key metrics will be captured in the image attached.

By participating in Solve we hope we can address our financial and technological barrier. If we win Solve, the prize will be used to expand our operation in the area around Bekasi, Karawang and Morotai industrial estate. Even if we didn’t win the prize, exposure to mentorship and a supportive community of peers and experts will help us to build our innovative technology and approach, as well as to test and refine our solution. The platform for exchange of ideas is very important and we believe it could help us in overcoming the technological barriers in a more collaborative and innovative way.

We expect to be connected with either MIT resources or other Solvers to improve how we implement our AI matching and recommendation system as well as leveraging up the quality of our psychometric tests.

We have done a desk research in which we expect to be connected with MIT Media Lab and MIT AI Lab. We will further explore how we can improve our psychometric test with MIT Media Lab, while we want to further validate how we build our current AI Recommendation and Matching system with MIT CSAIL.

The Manufacturing industry is one of the biggest industries in Indonesia, which hires a lot of vocational graduates. We will use the GM Prizes to advance our technology to specifically hone both technical skills and personality skills needed in the manufacturing industry. Specifically on VocatiTraining features, we will develop the training that is focusing on the manufacturing industry. As we are currently partnering with Jababeka, the largest industrial estate in south east asia.

We will use the AI for Humanity Prize, if selected, to improve our VocatiTest to use neuroscience technology to better reflect the student’s strengths, weaknesses, true potential, and passions. We hope our AI recommendations and matching mechanism will minimize the bias conduct in the recruiting industry. The use of AI will further leverage up equal opportunities for underprivileged groups such as minority, people living in low opportunity neighborhoods and regions, and gender bias.