Knowledge Officer

Upskilling in today's constantly changing world is difficult to keep up with. Roles are shifting rapidly and so has the need for professionals to keep up with the skills needed for success

Knowledge Officer focuses on the highly demanded industry skills, helping learners navigate learning paths that guide them from complete novices to a hire-able professional in a time frame that suits them best.

Our Artificial Intelligence analyses job descriptions from top companies to pick out the most important skills. Then we compare learner skillsets to  chosen careers and focus learning in the right skill gaps.

Aided by expert human curation, our machines source the highest quality learning materials to give the best content possible. We also pick out the key learnings, create challenges, track your progress, answer your questions and allow learner to compete with friends.

The technology is engaging and fun to use, ensuring user stickiness and retention. 

The world has shifted drastically to technology and its various roles in regards to the job market demands. With the emergence of COVID-19 technological literacy and the need for it was expedited beyond what was originally anticipated. The latest figures the economic downturn it engendered swelled the ranks of unemployed Americans by more than 14 million, from 6.2 million in February to 20.5 million in May 2020. As a result, the U.S. unemployment rate shot up from 3.8% in February to 13.0% in May. That rate was the era’s second highest, trailing only the level reached in April (14.4%).

These figures represent not only a rapid shift in demand but also in emphasis on what roles are to be prioritized over the next period of economic recovery.

Knowledge Officer provides a solution to the growing number of professionals looking to transition from the traditional roles to the technology first roles that adapt to the current employer demand. We provide the shortest path to employment through programs designed to enrich and equip learners with efficient learning in the most in-demand technology roles that include all the basics of digital transformation and technological literacy.

The solution is a complete learning path through currently 6 technological roles that are most demanded in the new "future of work" job market that include:

- Entrepreneurship, product management, customer success, marketing specialists, growth specialist and machine learning engineers. 

There are three levels of learning on the platform for these topics, beginner, intermediate and advanced to account for the different needs and growth levels.

Our solutions uses big data and AI to find and source the best content available and pairs it with the human assessment and learning element utilizing a mix of tech follow-up and expert intervention, streamlining the process for role ready training of the learners.

By the end of the learning cycles (and depending on the product chosen) learners will be ready to access a wide range of opportunities in their chosen roles from internships to employment. All in just 3 to 6 months.

The learners journey also includes practical elements of job prospecting and preparation that supplements the core knowledge that inputs the learners in the dynamic environment of the technology world.

We have two audiences we serve primarily:

1- People entering the job market for the first time.

2- Professionals who are looking to upskill, learn new skills adapting to changing job market demands.

The first group typically entails learners that graduating schools, colleges and technical schools where they are faced with employability challenges and changing job dynamics. The are typically not defined by area of study but rather interest in technological roles. We cater to the various levels of technological literacy within that group availing content that moves them gradually through their understanding of a given topic. All our topics are generated from within the local market needs and that is used to align demand.

For our second group, we asses them through skill test to establish competence and work on a detailed plan to give them the required skill sets. That is done through extensive research and conversation with learners on a case by case basis. Once that occurs we tailor a specific plan supported by technology to work on the skill gaps. 

We also work with companies to close this cycle, with each of our partners telling us in details the skill gaps they are looking to plug.

Problem: changing job market demand moving rapidly to technology that is specific and role based. It is difficult to find channels that link demand with learning with an emphasis on efficient role based training

Solution: a technological learning platform that sources its content through advanced technology to provide the shortest path to upskilling and employment in the most in-demand technology roles in the market

Target population: targets recent graduates from all walks of life interested n technology and innovation, and the group of professionals impacted by recent global events such as COVID-19 looking for opportunities that match our time

Fulltime staff - 20 people

Speakers/mentors - a network of 50 people

Our organization has a global presence with offices in the UK, India and Egypt. Our values are:

- People & diversity - we have close to 10 nationalities in a diverse setting globally

- Continuous learning - we all prioritize self development and learning

- Belief in a higher goal  - finding the shortest path to employment with the people that need it most regardless of the background

- Taking risks - making leaps of faith with our customers where non have

- Objective oriented - our goal is employability and all our work revolves around that conversion.

We make sure we follow non discriminatory environment when it comes to our hiring practices, which is all based on competence and equal opportunity 

Commercial innovation: Our approach is very different to face-to-face courses/bootcamp or enrolling in an online course, because people going through those experiences receive the same content while their actual learning needs, styles and backgrounds are very different. It has been
proven by research that personalized learning is far more effective than traditional learning solutions. Our innovation is to collect massive market data on job roles and skills to deliver role- specific freely available learning content, all of which is actually needed.
Technical innovation: Building skills and job titles taxonomies which dynamically update as job market roles evolve is a massive technical challenge. In addition, it is extremely difficult for a machine to be able to classify unstructured pieces of text from various sources against skills without human assistance. We are aiming to use unsupervised deep learning algorithms to reach top academic-level standards. The solution disrupts the e-learning sector worldwide.

As referred to above, we compete indirectly with MOOCs (Coursera, Plural sight, Udemy, Udacity) however our approach is a customized data driven learning experience that dives much deeper into the learners own skills as opposed to set modules. Directly we compete with a company such as product school, where they provide a small subset of the roles we provide. 

We at Knowledge Officer have built an AI recommendation model to personalize our learners’ learning paths, focusing only on their skills gap. 

To achieve that, we have a group of smart engines that have been built in house to collect all the information needed about our users’ experience and their acquired skills, in addition to a unique assessment engine that helps to assess our users in each skill that is important to achieve their career goals. Our platform is a data-driven learning so our Data scientists/ ML Engineers/ NLP Engineers have been worked hard in building a robust natural language processing engine that can curate and process millions of job posts, which give us a visibility on the on-demand required skills for most of the job titles in the tech industry.

We at Knowledge Officer have built an AI recommendation model to personalize our learners’ learning paths, focusing only on their skills gap. To achieve that, we have a group of smart engines that have been built in house to collect all the information needed about our users’ experience and their acquired skills, in addition to a unique assessment engine that helps to assess our users in each skill that is important to achieve their career goals.

Our platform is a data-driven learning so our Data scientists/ ML Engineers/ NLP Engineers have been worked hard in building a robust natural language processing engine that can curate and process millions of job posts, which give us a visibility on the on-demand required skills for most of the job titles in the tech industry.

All that is segmented through multiple channels (Web, Android and IOS) to provide multiple entry points for all learner to acquire the learning intended. Our technology is easy to use and seamless in experience.

Skill shortages are a major issue in the US and arise because there are not enough people with particular skills to meet demand. The Open University estimates that skill shortages cost the US $2bn a year in higher salaries, recruitment costs and temporary staffing bills. They can also significantly hamper growth. According to research, the US could boost its productivity by 5 per cent if it reduced the level of skill mismatch to best practice levels.

The whole world is looking for alternative, efficient and affordable education. Bill Gates summarised the problem nicely: “I read more than my share of textbooks,” Gates says. “But it’s a pretty limited way to learn something. Even the best text can’t figure out which concepts you understand and which ones you need more help with.” Software can be used to create a much more dynamic learning experience.

 Our aim at Knowledge Officer is to create the shortest and most efficient path to employment and career progression. Our e-learning platform technology builds a personalized learning path, helping the user to learn with purpose to achieve their career goals. We use a three-step process 1) Skills - artificial intelligence analyses job descriptions from the best companies in the world to pick out the most common and important skills. 2) Learning - we source the highest quality learning materials from around the web, create challenges, track your progress and allow you to compete with your friends - proven ways to learn more effectively. 3) Opportunities - once you've learned core skills, we'll match you with jobs and opportunities based on your criteria.

Our solution understands the skills required for each job title on the market based on data from millions of job posts and public company profiles and finds the best-curated content that helps people gain those skills.

This project will conduct challenging research to extend our technology so that given a job title or a career goal, and a location or industry, will list the required skills for the goal in this specific location and industry and also output a recommended learning path to get skills

USERS: 

42% of millennials are likely to leave their current job because they are not learning fast enough. 

Our technology will provide eLearners with faster, cheaper, more engaging access to learning content in a format and style which suites modern expectations. We see 30% more engagement than other training solution platforms - this assessment has been validated in prior POC testing. By giving access to our digital learning tools, users have been shown to work faster and access more relevant training. Estimates provided by current users estimate 30%-50% time savings could be achieved compared to current methods. 

SOCIAL: 

Jobs/skills – It is fair to recognize that the introduction of e-Learning technology could lead to job losses across the traditional face-to-face training sector. However, a larger counterbalancing benefit is that our technology will upskill users, particularly millennials, who are attracted by, and comfortable with this technology-led training. Coursera (largest online open course provider) claim to have 35 million learners around the world, so the potential beneficial reach is self-evident.  

ENVIRONMENTAL: 

The technology will require additional compute resources/energy to process the content. The aim is minimizing impact by efficient architectural design, avoiding negative environmental impact. With no physical product to ship, no user travel, we otherwise have a low environmental impact. An environmental audit will be undertaken during the project.

REGIONAL: 

This technology is accessible to both individuals and Enterprise customers through a portal, API and mobile apps. The cost-effective e-Learning products therefore have the potential to spread benefits irrespective of location.

TECHNICAL:

 A High likelihood/High impact risk that Data quality varies hugely from job sites and other sources, so more time is needed cleaning data, delaying machine learning. 

Medium/High risk that difficulty extracting and identifying skills from 5million job posts, 200,000 unique job titles and 25,000 unique skills prevents adequate matching algorithms from working at scale. 

High/Medium risk of bias e.g. majority of software developers are male, so when we conduct ML on this data, it would not be surprising if their learning style and career goals have male characteristics. 

 Medium/High risk that semi-automated data analysis could be possible, but un-supervised processing is too challenging. 

COMMERCIAL:

 Medium/High risk that job posts/profiles do not accurately reflect the learning needs of users - a major problem. Mitigation: Inaccuracies will get filtered out as the number of job posts and companies increases massively. We could add inputs and validations from LinkedIn, ONET.

 Medium/High risk of competition impacting our opportunity. 

 Medium/High risk that adoption rates and revenue are lower than expected.   

MANAGERIAL:

Medium/High risk that unable to find good staff, or key staff could leave. 

TECHNICAL:

Mitigation: Quality data inputs will be a crucial element to make learning hypotheses. Extra experimental testing and extraction techniques could be added in plans, drawing on input from advisors.

Mitigation: R&D in plans could try alternative solutions to build a successful role/relationship graph, such as blending data from multiple sources, which could result in different approaches for evaluation.

Mitigation: Whilst existing user-base is 80% male, the balance will change as more job roles added. Female-only user groups could be established to evaluate and suggest amendments to the learning paths and content.

Mitigation: Build on prior POC small dataset, and run A/B tests and experiments in workplans. We could separate parts of pipeline so they can run and be optimized independently. 

COMMERCIAL:

Mitigation: Inaccuracies will get filtered out as the number of job posts and companies increases massively. We could add inputs and validations from LinkedIn, ONET and Nesta research.

 Mitigation: Gain feedback from an MVP as soon as possible in plans. Conduct regular competitor analysis to identify new trends. Could launch earlier if necessary.

 Mitigation: WP4 includes stakeholder engagement work to feedback on pricing and the learning experience of early adopters. Could add more features to increase attractiveness, and try additional marketing initiatives.  

MANAGERIAL:

Mitigation: R&D is saved in shared repository and discussed at team meetings. Temp staff could be hired to backfill.

- identify, and where possible measure, the economic benefits from the project to those outside the project such as productivity increases and import substitution

- identify, and where possible measure, any expected social impacts, either positive or negative, for example:

• • quality of life

  • social inclusion/exclusion

  • jobs (safeguarded, created, changed, displaced)

  • education

  • public empowerment 

  • health and safety 

  • regulations

  • diversity

  • any expected impact on government priorities                                     

  • -identify, and where possible measure, any expected environmental impacts, either positive or negative

  • -identify any expected regional impacts of the project

- N/A

Our team is distributed across the world in Europe (UK), Africa (Egypt) and Asia (India) . With this diverse setting we were personally impacted with changing job market demand throughout our lives. 

Our CEO Ahmed El- Sharkasy, moved from his home country of Egypt to the UK after job opportunities and was successful in building successful companies and startups leading to founding Knowledge officer.

Our CTO Ahmed Eshra also followed suite with an immigration to the UK shortly after. The challenges faced finding opportunities in Tech jobs are reflected in the design of our solution specifically to the role centric approach we take.

The COO Sherif Olama, also moved from Egypt to Canada to pursue grafuate studies while founding and supporting startups in Toronto. Which gave him a view of how to globally find and refine role based education. 

Key to our methodology is the partnerships between Knowledge Officer and key stake holders in our process.

We typically have:

1- Funding partners: that sponsor our learners as a recruitment funnel. These include Venture capital and big tech. 500 startups and facebook among many other

2- Execution partners: these are the partners that support through delivery of content and key mentors. These include big tech such as amazon, apple, incorta among many other

3- Domain partners: these are the partners that support in specific domain knowledge to Knowledge Officer. They include partnerships with learning institution, governmental organizations, and engineering companies such as:

Innovate UK, OXAI, Educate, among many others. 

A low pricing model (freemium) aims to sign up large numbers of users quickly, (but 15-20% of current users pay a subscription). The Edtech market is an excellent starting location, given its leading position in the US, and lack of strong path-to-employment competitors. Our novel affordable approach for users will be complemented by B2B offerings to create a marketplace for jobs/skills/training. 

PRICING: B2C: Target 500,000 users by 2021, 15-20% paying $5/user/month. B2B: We target companies with 50-300 employees, paying $10/user/month. Target monthly recurring revenues by 2021 of $200K. Projected sales have been sense checked by partners and stakeholders.

REVENUES/ROI:

Revenues: By 2021 B2C – 400,000 users @ $5/month = $24m. B2B - $200k/month = $2.4m. 50% cost of sales gives $13.2m gross profit.

PRODUCTIVITY/GROWTH:

This project will increase automation (productivity) and reduce current manual tasks - classifying content and reviewing data. The new technology will allow faster increases in career goals and job titles that we cover, and hence increase the target audience.

OTHER MARKETS:

This technology will allow us to scale into other industries from 2021, such as Recruitment. Already signed contracts with Adzuna, ZipRecruiter, Indeed and Greenhouse, giving them exclusive access to our user-to-jobs recommendations, which will be strengthened by this project’s more precise job-profile matches.

FURTHER R&D:

Post-project research will build:

1. Learning styles engine: to recommend learning content based on user’s learning style, agility and comprehension levels.

2. Assessment engine: tool to verify the skills gained, classified against the skills taxonomy gained here.

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Yes, we have previously raised 1.3 M USD prior to our application.

These funds were raised on two types;

1- 600K USD as a seed round 

2- 500K USD in grants.

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Project cost of $409k and post-project R&D of $1m, delivers 743% project RoI.

$409k Project cost;

The largest cost is Labour ($268k), 1030 days, average $260/day. We have calculated the employee and contractor days for each plan. Clearly the plan may change once the project has started, but we will control resources rigorously. A 20% admin overhead is added.

CONTRACTORS: $68k, 17% project cost, are essential to deliver rapidly deployed expertise which the company does not have. Academic consultant ($18k, 30 days), DataZum ($37k, 75 days) data and analytics specialist, Penetration tester ($5k, 10 days) and Project Management consultant ($8k, 12 days). The use of these US-based contractors is particularly helpful in the early stages of the project, as they provide instant experience and expertise, that will ensure a fast start. We will look to reduce contractor usage, as the project team including the 5 new staff get up to speed.  

A $12k materials budget is towards AWS cloud development environment, essential to conduct tests away from the live system (15 months @ $800/month), and $7.5k for a patent filing.

Our solution worked in the major markets we established (UK, Egypt and India) where there is active opportunities pushed nationally and through specific mandates to upskill populations.

Post COVID-19, we believe the US is poised with the same upskill challenge that has left 40 M people looking for opportunities.

Knowledge Officer is perfectly placed to fill that skill gap. 

Types of partners:

- Funding

- Industry 

- Academia

- N/A