Arthan (meaning economic development in Sanskrit)

Equipping millions of young people with skills and economic opportunities as they step into the work of the future.

India’s workforce of half a billion individuals faces a paradox. On the one hand, India is poised to have the largest, and youngest workforce in the world. On the other hand, firms are unable to hire skilled workers because of skill-mismatches- the current level/ type of skills available do not correspond to rapidly changing needs of firms. Every year, close to 50 million students in India drop out of high school. This highlights the disconnect between school curriculum and the aspirations and pecuniary necessities faced by young Indians. This disconnect is more profound for youth from low income communities who have stressed budgets, little or no access to formal employment opportunities and no career planning advice. Further, industrial organizations are changing rapidly, with new technologies (Industry 4.0) and the evolving style of work such as rising flexible working. Workers in such an industrial setup need to be lifelong learners.

Arthan aspires to solve this problem by leveraging the potential of technology. In India, smartphone penetration has grown significantly both in urban and rural areas (300 million+ in 2018). The government is also actively pushing for digitization of the economy. Building on this, Arthan is engaged in working at the intersection of development and technology as we believe that technology can be used to leapfrog developmental stages.

Leveraging technology, and our team’s deep grassroots understanding, experience and access to organized labor market networks, Arthan aims to help  millions of young people recognize and achieve their potential by connecting them to high quality jobs, suitable to their skill sets and aspirations. For this we have devised a hybrid venture model, which combines:

• A market-based solution- Arthan Careers, which leverages an online employment portal [http://arthancareers.com] that links employers to talent, filtered on the basis of skills, location and Sustainable Development Goals. We recognize that not all job seekers have the same needs or face the same barriers to employment. The job portal enables inclusive hiring by enabling employers to illustrate their preference of hiring differently-abled people or women returning to the workforce. Further, recognizing the evolving nature of work and popularity of the gig economy, the portal includes employment opportunities ranging from full-time, part-time, internships, consulting, volunteer work, and work-from-home.
• A not-for-profit entity-Arthan Foundation [https://www.arthan.in] works with children from low income communities in secondary public schools, teaching them about career planning, and introducing them to the demands that the modern economy makes of its workers- need for critical thinking, teamwork, effective communication. We are also developing an online platform for children that will include real time information about careers, scholarships and job-related knowledge and resources.

Hence, Arthan is ensuring that the youth is ready for the work of the future by incorporating industry-specific needs, nuances and insights in our job portal and curriculum and equipping the youth with relevant soft skills crucial to the work of the future.

The work of the future is evolving rapidly and both employers and jobseekers will need to adapt to this changing scenario.

Arthan is innovative in its hybrid approach of preparing both sides of the spectrum (employers and job seekers) for this change by incorporating learning from one to the development of the other; leveraging technology to ensure that hiring trends and nuances of firms are analyzed and incorporated into the curriculum taught on career planning. This synergistic approach will go a long way in helping the supply side in the labor market make good to the demand side.

While an offline solution can enable research and learning, it cannot be scaled with the immense efficiency, speed or reach of technology. 

Technology is integral to our solution of an employment platform that matches job-seekers and employers. Further, we are developing an online platform for children that will include a plethora of real time information about types of careers, scholarships, and career planning; reaching millions of children, empowering them to make career decisions on data and information. This collaborative approach to delivery enables us to maximize resources, achieve scale and create a comprehensive ecosystem for change.

At Arthan, our aim is to focus on what is most important to the user’s expectation and ultimately, their employment goals. Over the next 12 months, we will launch version 2.0 of the employment platform with improved features, like advanced skill matching, that would lead to a better conversion rate. We aim to on-board 100,000 job seekers and 3,600 employers.

Further, the goal is to ensure that our online platform for students is fully functional and has 30,000 users on-board. Further, we aim to impact 10,000 children through our existing career planning program.

Our vision is to become a pioneering social business in the employment space by providing high quality, long- term, sustainable human capital solutions to students, job seekers and employers. Over the next three to five years, our output targets, through linking youth to sustained employment, include:

• Deploying career preparedness program impacting 0.5 million youth
• Enabling 1 million youth access relevant employment opportunities
• Supporting 50,000 organizations find talent

Leveraging technology to magnify our scale, we aspire to help the youth make well-informed career choices and have the right skills catering to the work of the future and the market.

Our solution is deployed both online and offline. The online intervention is through the employment and careers information portal. The offline intervention is through HR consulting support to employers and the delivery of our career planning program through a Train-the-Trainer model, where we train teachers/social workers to deliver our curriculum.

To reach our target audience, we leverage social media, online ads, mass emails and our blog. Our offline efforts include conducting career workshops and working with incubators. To retain these stakeholders, we aspire to keep them engaged by communicating effectively and incorporating user feedback.

Arthan Careers caters to job seekers in the age group of 20-35 years and employers looking for entry/mid-level talent. We are currently serving 16,720 job seekers and 454 employers through our human capital services.

Arthan Foundation caters to adolescent children [14-19 years old] from low-income backgrounds studying in secondary public schools. Currently, 2,000 children are going through our career planning program.

At Arthan Careers, we aspire to on-board 100,000 job seekers and 3,600 employers on the jobs platform in 12 months and reach 1 million job seekers and 50,000 employers by 2024.

At Arthan Foundation, we aim to impact 10,000 children [offline intervention] and 30,000 children [online intervention] through our career planning program. By 2024, we aim impact half a million children studying across 2,500 public schools in India through government partnerships.

We are a team of driven professionals, with a combined experience of 60+ years. Our team members specialize in HR, organizational development, accounting, education, curriculum development, technology and consulting.

Some of our previous employers include BCG, ILO, UN, PwC, Pratham and Teach for India, where our team members have led soft skills intervention across 2000+ public schools, written research reports on the ‘Future of Jobs’, written 15 books for children on soft skills and hired 200+ youth on their career path to transforming the education landscape. Our education has been across esteemed universities including Oxford, LSE, Stanford, Harvard and Sussex.

We conceived a hybrid model to ensure financial sustainability and to ensure that we are not 100% donor driven/dependent.

The for-profit entity (Arthan Careers) generates revenue and financially sustains the charity arm (Arthan Foundation). Apart from this, Arthan Foundation raises funds through its fundraising initiatives as well. Our aim is to ensure that we cover the cost of teaching a child at Arthan Foundation by the profit generated from enabling a job seeker to find a job at Arthan Careers.

Currently, Arthan Careers generates revenue from its online jobs portal as well as through human capital consulting services, which enables learning from, and interacting closely with employers, while solving their human capital challenges. The structure can be elaborated as follows:

• B2B Online work:  Charge employers per job posting on the platform
• B2B Offline work: We take on consulting assignments that include an array of human capital services, from talent acquisition to organization development to understand industry and employer needs, nuances and challenges.

As a young social organization, aspiring to create systemic, global impact, preparing the youth for the work of the future, we are aware of the formidable task ahead of us. We applied to Solve last year understanding it can act as a catalyst connecting us with industry stalwarts whose mentorship can help us strengthen our organization, our work and guide us towards our goals. This resolve was strengthened this year, when we met with Community Relations Officer at Solve, Ms. Eliza Berg, who further explained to us the incredible mentorship support and access to community and resources that Solve provides.

We aspire to scale our solution pan-India over the next two to three years. Our existing networks, ground-level understanding of workforce demand and supply, and experience will enable us to achieve this goal. However, to scale the solution across the globe would need collaborations with organizations, who not only comprehend the solution and its need, but are also willing to implement the solution and help us continue evolving and innovating the same.

Solve with its global community of technology innovators, can support us address both these challenges- of global reach as well as addressing rapidly evolving technology changes.