1Mentor

We all know how the world has been disrupted by technology. This has created a new challenge for colleges and universities: how to equip students for the future of work.

Our technology makes the process of making education evolve at the same pace as the rest of the economy sustainable and effortless for stakeholders.

We introduce our AI technology to Universities’ job portals. 

Data from job openings, specifically job responsibilities, requirements and qualifications, will be collected, allowing us to analyze the skill sets employers need. On the other hand, the data collected from student applications and resumes, will allow 1Mentor to analyze the skill sets and interests of students’ looking to participate in the workforce. From this, our technology generates real-time, data driven recommendations for curricula updating to Universities and personalized recommendations for career planning and skill development for students.

We expand this to youth not attending universities.

The world is facing a huge dilemma with the provision of a highly-skilled workforce to the labour market. The World Economic Forum has identified human capital and the skills gap as the primary problem since it is the pillar that connects five of the crucial problems faced by the economy: productivity growth, lack of innovation, inequality, the informal economy, and social exclusion.

Although the US is one of the highest educated countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), too few employees have occupations that utilize the full extent of their skills and knowledge, costing $160 billion in forgone GDP. The skills gap currently impacts sectors that account for almost 40% of employment: health, professional, science, technical services, and financial industries. 

The problem is forecasted to worsen and all stakeholders agree that to help alleviate this problem, there needs to exist a better linkage between post-secondary institutions, businesses, and job seekers. The importance lies in that skill intensive industries grow faster where there is a skilled workforce. Therefore, this causes a global race in training and education to capture investments and accelerate technological progress, making human capital and the skills gap a growing concern for the entire economy.

We are building a sustainable system of collaboration between industry and academia, looking to better prepare students for the future of work. We are starting by analyzing universities’ available job portal data to better understand industry needs. The data collected from job postings, specifically job responsibilities, requirements and qualifications, will allow us to analyze the skill sets required by the labour market. On the other hand, the data collected from student profiles and applications, will allow us to analyze the current skill sets offered by students looking to participate in the workforce. Machine learning and artificial intelligence systems will be developed leveraging both the data from the job postings and students’ profiles. These systems will create automatized guidelines for students to acquire and further develop skills required in their field or for a particular career they are targeting. Furthermore, access to the insights developed by these systems will allow post-secondary institutions to access real-time, data-driven recommendations for curricula updating to adapt to current and future labour market needs. The next step is to expand and provide access to these resources to marginalized population and those without access to higher education. 

Our solution is first targeted to students in post-secondary institutions. 1Mentor's Machine Learning & AI systems will be deployed with Colleges, Universities and Education programs, to analyze the discrepancy between labour market needs and the skills developed by their students.

With the insights acquired from these analyses we can create automatized guidelines for students to know what and how to develop the skills required to succeed in today’s drastically changing workforce; and also provide universities with real-time, data-driven recommendations for curricula updating. In this way, we establish a sustainable model, where higher education embraces work-experience and industry-academia collaboration as the new standard always providing students with an up to date and relevant skill sets allowing them to better secure jobs and have immediate impact in the workplace. 

This model establishes a direct link with students in programs of four-year degrees or students of other types of education programs. In any of these cases we can provide the most relevant insights and recommendations for skill development. Then we can expand and deliver these resources to those that are not part of these programs so they know where and how to acquire the skills needed to be relevant for the workforce. 

Imagine having all the market information available for youth who cannot attend post-secondary institutions. Imagine that they can know exactly what knowledge and skills they need to attain a sustainable job. Our technology, combined with available online resources, will be a game-changer for youth employment. 

Full-time staff: 2
Part-time staff: 2
Interns: 2
We count with the support from Google and Quantiphi.

The company was founded by two latinos originally from Ecuador that have immigrated to the US and Canada. Our personal experiences, living in different countries, speaking different languages, and coming from vastly different fields of professional experience has enforced our commitment to have cognitive and general diversity in our team. At 1Mentor, we understand that diversity brings new perspectives, points of views, and subsequently opportunities. In fact, education at its core, needs diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to push forward and evolve. Therefore, we believe that not only our company has found value in these three pillars, but that employment and education need diversity, equity and inclusion. Therefore, we strive to always keep the safe space we have built and to thrust ahead ways to show the value that these provide in the workforce. 

• This challenge is recognized by all the stakeholders involved: the government, universities, students, and companies. 

• We have researched past attempts to solve this problem and identified the major flaws from these attempts.

• First, instead of building a sustainable system, we are all building “research projects”, in which researchers are tasked to find the skills desired by industry. What about in 5 years from now? In 10?

• Second, we have systems relying on multiple stakeholders, an expert panel was formed in Canada in 2016 which involved industry, government, and universities and proposed a solution to close the skills gap. 4 years later the same experts that proposed the solution said that it lacks accountability and that progress has been difficult to achieve,

• And, third, curricula updating is too bureaucratic, slow and it lacks adaptability. 

Software: Artificial Intelligence. Specifically Machine Learning models (supervised and unsupervised)

We are basically looking at the skills gap.We all know the challenges that post-secondary institutions are having with keeping pace with the evolving economy.The evolution of technology has made the development of job-ready students a significant challenge. This challenge is recognized by all the stakeholders involved: the government, universities, students, and companies. We have researched past attempts to solve this problem and identified the major flaws from these attempts: most are unsustainable one-time research projects which lack adaptability and become outdated. Others fail to incorporate all stakeholders, lacking critical information and lastly, most have to follow long bureaucratic processes for curricula updating and research, rendering the findings obsolete by the time they are delivered to students. 

Our solution focuses on creating a sustainable and continuous bridge between the skills industry demands and the skills taught at institutions. By tapping into talent acquisition platforms, we are able to on the one hand analyze job postings for the skills demanded by industry. On the other hand we can analyze student profiles and university course descriptions to analyze the skills being taught to the new workforce. With our ML & AI technology we can analyze these information to find patterns, trends, gaps and other insights. These insights are immediately provided to students and institutions allowing them access to real-time, data driven recommendations for curricula updating and skill development. in fact, it will allow individuals to have insights into their skills and how they can be deployed into the workforce.  This continuos model can be the solution to the skills gap, by creating the first talent pool of students and the first future workforce  prepared directly in collaboration between industry and academia. 

Expand to as many of the 5,300 post-secondary institutions in the US --> expand outside of post-secondary institutions to serve youth who doesn't have access to higher education.

Capital 

Adoption 

Legal (Data)

Capital: build a sustainable business.

Adoption: Develop go to market strategies which will allow us to serve the majority of the population. We are already in talks with 20 post-secondary institutions. Upwards and onwards.

Legal: Took us 7 months to develop a data privacy strategy, which would be to the universities/colleges standards. 

• Esteban Veintimilla/Founder has direct experience in the field of student skill development, internship and job placements. Has hired 150+ students in the past 18 months, filling positions for 75+ projects at different companies. UW Mathematics Alumni, currently taking the last course of the MITx MicroMasters degree in Data Science and Machine Learning.

• Martin Serrano/Founder is an urban planner and architecture designer and consultant, who has worked in projects of all types and has experience with private, government, and University clients. Was a co-founder of a manufactured housing startup, which successfully received funding for prototypes and is currently in the process of building a factory. Currently enrolled in the MITx MicroMasters degree in Data Science and Machine Learning.

• Google Partnership Advantage:

  • Commitment to fund:

    • Technology development

    • Pilot project technology costs (GCP credits, developers, technical support)

    • Portion of future “expansion” costs to other Universities.

  • Becoming a Google Partner for Education gives instant credibility and access to Google’s network in the Education field.

• There are 20.7 million students in North America. 

• This is our starting addressable because the long term plan is to build a job-ready pool of talent including youth outside of post-secondary institutions, where employers can access premium recruitment tools to hire youth. 

• With the subscription to our technology we expect to reduce the costs and time to hire in half. This way we can also tap into the $36 billion campus recruitment market.
  

  
  

At a $60 annual subscription, we have a starting addressable market of $1.2 billion per year. 

Referrals to online courses in Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning... provide us with a commission. 

Google For Education, $27,000

Canadian Business Model Canvas Competition (National Entrepreneurship Competition): $5,000

E Launch Award (Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre): $5,000

Additional Funding Award (Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre): $3,200

Product Video Showcase Competition (Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre): $1,000

Grants and Equity:

Looking to raise $250,000

$160,000

We've been working on this for over 3 years. There was finally a challenge which was a perfect fit, aligning with our goals and aspirations.

Universities and Colleges.