Automation Workz

PROBLEM

McKinsey & Co highlights in  Future of Work in Black America,  that automation is set to wipe out 60% of African American  low skilled manual jobs increasing poverty from the current 20.8%  reported by Census Bureau. African Americans are disproportionately suffering layoffs due to  automation. Yet, they have not pursued growing Tech jobs.  

SOLUTION

Automation Workz seeks to develop an  AI Microlearning Platform embedded with games, simulations and voice-bots to train participants to handle  a tech support call.  Many working class people are kinesthetic learners,  who learn best by doing with  hands-on activities.

IMPACT

With successful scaling, participants will, first, move from minimum wage $7.25 to an average wage of $20.67. Secondly, participants will gain experience to prepare for certification training in networking, cybersecurity, programming with potential wages of $35 to $100. Thirdly, poverty and crime rates would be reduced while exposing next generation to  tech careers.

Census Bureau shows the working class is comprised of 107 million workers, who have a high school diploma and not a degree.  African Americans makeup 12.59% of this working class, employed in production, office, retail, food service and transportation jobs, automation will eliminate. McKinsey & Co predicts Baltimore and Detroit will be the 1st cities to lose jobs during this automation wave. The job loss has already begun in Detroit, a city with a 79% African American population. The Detroit Poverty rate is 33.4%, 12percentage points higher than the national African American poverty rate. High paying low killed manufacturing jobs disappeared in the 2008 recession pushing residents into manual service jobs as they do not have basic business tech experience or training.

 

 AI  Microlearning platform embedded with games, simulations and Voice-bots to train participants to handle a tech support call with minimal reading. Rather than read material, participants will be immersed into learning process. First they will play a video game to learn a tech concept. Secondly, they will complete a digital simulation to assess whether they learned the tech concept. Thirdly, they will practice customer interaction with a voice-bot like Alexa, Siri, or Cortana. Lastly, they will complete a theoretical assessment exam so they have exposure to master it at an employer.

Our solution is built on a learning management system currently. Artificial intelligence and natural language processing (Voice-bot)  is needed to combine gaming and simulations to provide a seamless immersive experience. 

Automation Workz serves  African Americans, ages of 20-40,
living in Urban US cities, earning $10-12 per hour, employed in lower-level tech, office, logistics, transportation, food service and production
positions.  

Workforce development is struggling with transitioning working class Americans to middle skill careers that require specialized digital  training. A National Skills Coalition study revealed that a startling 50% of Black workers in the U.S. have no to limited digital skills.  This working class population chooses not to attend tech training as they struggle with reading for comprehension or they have weak mathematical ability. Therefore, they selected their careers as they like doing task rather than reading about tasks. Most learned their profession by simulating and practicing tasks.

Entertainment Software Association shows 65% of Americans play video games daily. The average age of game players is 32 for males and 34 for females. Video gaming is a doing activity. Voicebot.ai shows voice-enabled artificial intelligence adoption is growing exponentially as 100 million Alexa speaker devices have been purchased and 1 billion devices have Google Assistant on them. Voice-enabled artificial intelligence is  human directed technology doing a task. Our AI Microlearning Platform solution utilizes 2 technologies Americans are natural gravitating towards - gaming and voice-bots

Many of the working class is employed with large corporations who offer tuition reimbursement. Sadly, most do not have the monies to pay tuition and wait for reimbursement. Automation Workz in conjunction with the AI Microlearning Platform provides The Big Bet  ISA (Income Sharing agreement)  to defer tuition payments until after graduation and acquisition of an industry related job. Students repay tuition within 5 years without student loans. If students  do not acquire a higher paying job  within 5 years, they pay no tuition. The AI Microlearning Platform provides a high-quality  training and the Big Bet ISA makes it affordable. 

2 full-time 3 part-time 3 contractors

Automation Workz serves  African Americans, ages of 20-40, living in Urban US cities, earning $10-12 per hour, employed in lower-level tech, office, logistics, transportation, food service and production positions.  We employ instructors and staff that resemble our clients.  It is difficult to find African American Cisco certified  instructors so we  have  trained and groomed our own . Our instructors  not only train participants in tech support, but also in Cisco certified courses in network engineering, cybersecurity and IoT.

Our competition is Infosec Institute, Cybrary and   New Horizons Learning Center  

Automation Workz is a consulting and upskilling firm  focused on combining Cybersecurity, Marketing and Data  technology. Automation Workz placed African American residents into remote tech jobs and just recently placed a student into a remote Network Security Firewall Auditor position earning $105,000. Student left a remote tech support job.

This placement has substantiated our process  of

Non-traditional admissions assessment - Rather than administer a typical college entrance/ workforce readiness exam of reading and mathematics,  our  students attend an admissions sampler course to test their video game playing ability.  Those who are great video game player are great problem solvers.  Formal and Informal African American Mentorship, - There are few Affrican american instructors in tech training. With the assistance of Cisco Sytems we have been grooming our own.

Microlearning activities of Video Gaming, digital simulations, voice-bots to remediate resident tech skills,  

Job coaching  -  exposure to new careers in tech

Creation of the Big Bet ISA - Income Sharing agreement)  to defer tuition payments until after graduation and acquisition of an industry related job. Students repay tuition within 5 years without student loans. If students  do not acquire a higher paying job  within 5 years, they pay no tuition.

Our students leave Automation Workz financially sound  with a higher salary, without student loans on their credit report.

Our innovation is the process of training a resident for a tech career. Our core technology is Artificial intelligence in the form of a responsive voice-bot, similar to  Alexa, Siri, or Cortana. Residents need a partner and/or instructor to interact with to master handling a tech support phone call. A tech support phone call is a 2-way conversation with a customer until the problem is solved. In a traditional class, students practice the problem solving script with their fellow colleagues and  the instructor. The more conversational  practice, the better prepared the student becomes.

 

The AI Microlearning Platform provides an interactive conversational partner along with video gaming, and digital simulations so  residents can attend practice a tech support phone call at any time of the day   without coordinating their schedule with another individual. Resident can practice in the privacy of their home without embarrassment in front of a colleague.

 

Amazon’s Alexa is by far the most financially successful voice-bot having sold 100 million units with 30,000 skills built within. The Alexa skills are built by individual companies seeking access to Alexa users. Google Assistant is built on 1 billion devices – phones, pcs, speakers and cars. Approximately 129 million people utilize their voice-bot in car  annually. Microsoft Cortana is built into Microsoft 365 which has sold 200 million active subscription users daily. Voice-bots are utilized in every segment of society except mainstream education and training. Voice-bots were created as an assistive technology for those struggling with speech impediments in 1964. Its use has grown within special education speech therapists. Automation Workz desires to return voice-bots to its original use to remediate struggling learners.

Automation Workz theory of change is to expand African American communities into economically prosperous communities. Most African American communities are ghettos with little new development and commerce causing residents to commute out of the neighborhood to shop, seek entertainment and educate their children. By assisting the African American working class to secure remote tech jobs, Automation Workz would cause collective incomes to rise creating economic prosperity for the next 2 generations.

 

High collective income attracts developers to build shopping stores, restaurants and entertainment venue. New development changes communities into luxurious environments that nurtures parents and children to continually pursue the American Dream of affluence eliminating blight, poverty and crime. When children have hope and access to high quality education and training they are able to continue in high demand careers creating a cycle of affluence for the next generation.

 

Our strategy begins with attracting residents to attend training for the 1st rung of the tech career ladder – tech support. After training, Automation Workz will place resident into a remote tech support job earning $15-$20 per hour. Resident gains 1-2 years of experience and then pursues training for a middle skill tech career in network engineering, programming or data analytics. Resident completes training and secures a job earning $20-$30 per hour. Resident gains 1-2 years of experience and then pursues training for a higher skill tech career in cybersecurity, programmer and data science. Resident completes training and secures a job earning $30-$60 per hour.

 

Automation Workz one year goal is to train 1000 residents. Our 5 year goal is to train 30,000 residents. Our impact  is measured by the number of graduates,  the salaries they secure, reduction of the poverty rates, reduction of crime rates and median income of cities. Every student who completes their tech certification and acquires a higher income job strengthens the economy of inner cities and neighborhoods.

Our barrier is financial. First, The AI Microlearning Platform  has been cobbled together into a learning management system. We need to create a seamless AI product into its own platform. Secondly, African Americans are afraid on entry into tech careers. We need to create a marketing campaign to drive them into training. Thirdly, our founding team have been working on sweat equity agreements for the past 2 years, to complete a pilot where curriculum was offered for FREE to see if the project was viable. They need to be paid salaries. Lastly, our Big Bet ISA is an  unfunded investment. When it is fully funded 60% of the tuition is paid for operation and the rest deferred until a resident secure a higher paying job. Currently we receive no funding until student has been placed in a higher paying job. All of these issues would be resolved with financial investment.

Automation Workz is a Michigan licensed vocational post-secondary school. In 2020 rebranded ourself as an upskilling and consulting firm in order to secure corporate contracts related to diversity and tech diversity.  Automation Workz has secured $153,000 in diversity oriented corporate  contracts. We were awarded our first contract with Detroit Employment Solutions, the Detroit Workforce Michigan Works agency to train City of Detroit low income residents that began  9/1/2020. Our plan is to secure other contracts and utilize that funding to grow revenue  and  compensate for the barriers. Eventually the revenue growth would substantiate our process is working and  attract investors.

We are not able to collect how people are thinking as they complete training. We would  like to collect how their thinkin gchange due to curriculum a they progress.

Our team includes:

Ida Byrd-Hill, CEO & Founder, manages business activities for Automation Workz. Founded Cyber alternative high school, Hustle & TECHknow Preparatory High School,  for adjudicated youth. Grew financial advisory firm from 0 to 353 million AUM. BA Economic 1989 University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; MBA 2014, Strayer University. She is our business developer able to generate contracts. 

Kevin Hill COO manages tech operations as he is a Software Engineer with 7 years of experience in Python, Javascript, C and C++.   As he was studying for his BS Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology, Kevin began an Ethereum startup, Funguana, where he raised $150,000. 

Pat Sanford VP, Academics, manages academic curriculum design, delivery and instructors for AWI. Former Cybersecurity Adjunct Faculty University of Detroit-Mercy She has a MS Information Assurance and Software Management University of Detroit-Mercy 2014, BA Michigan State University She is our cybersecurity guru.

Mark Kreitler, VP, Innovation, manages instructional and interactive technology programming. He has 20 years game design, with both general entertainment and Department of Defense games. MS Physics 1996, University of Washington, BS Physics 1991, Montana State University, BS Mathematics 1991, Montana State University.  He is our game development guru.

Bethany Collins, VP Marketing/ Admissions. Bethany has served as neighborhood marketing consultant and community engagement manager. She has assisted neighborhoods and funders connect with their residents. Bethany has a MBA in Ecommerce from University of Phoenix and a BBA in Marketing from University of Michigan. She is our grassroots cultural master. 

Cisco Networking Academy. They provide curriculum

Metasolutions. They train our instructors.

AWI business model is:

 

Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Business to Government to Consumer (B2B2G)

Individual tuition 3 levels – Fundamental, Certification and Custom tracks.

Automation Workz Institute individual customers are People of color, ages of 20-34, living in Urban US cities, earning $10-12 per hour, employed in lower-level tech, customer service, logistics and production positions.  AWI Institutional customers are  Municipal  Workforce Development, HR and Training departments. 

.Automation Workz is a Michigan licensed vocational post-secondary school. In 2020 rebranded ourself as an upskilling and consulting firm in order to secure corporate contracts related to diversity and tech diversity. we  secured our certification as a minority supplier  to facilitate a faster acquisition of corporate contracts. Our founder wrote a book Invisible Talent Market that discusses  the viability of African Americans  reducing the tech talent shortage with access to tech training. She has launched DIVERSITY – A Reskilling Payday book and concept at conferences such as Sustainable Brands, Association of Corporate Growth. Automation Workz has secured $153,000 in diversity oriented corporate  contracts  during the pandemic to accelerate the hiring of diverse employees for corporations. We were awarded our first contract with Detroit Employment Solutions, the Detroit Workforce Michigan Works agency to train City of Detroit low income residents that began  9/1/2020. Our plan is to secure other corporate and workforce development contracts and utilize that funding to grow revenue  and  compensate for the barriers. Eventually the revenue growth would substantiate our process is working and then attract investors.

AWI needs to raise 1.72 million dollars the next 24 months to create a revenue generation marketing machine. Our Capital Need for the next 9 months is   $545,000, the following 6 months is  $650,000, the following 6 months is $350,000 and the final 3 months is $175,000.

Automation Workz Institute is seeking 1.72 million to fund  Instructors/Admin Salary/ Benefits @$700,000  Marketing & Admission Outreach @ $620,000 Technology Research@$300,000 to develop an Artificial Intelligence powered game-based instructor to speed up acquisition of basic knowledge within class and Operations - Office space/computers/ certification exams@$100,000.

We are seeking a relationship with IBM first to develop our product into its final phase as IBM is an AI voice-bot leader. Secondly we are seeking funding to expand our workforce development business. Many investor have shied away from our workforce development client them. Lastly, we are seeking mentorship to raise capital for our mission.

First, The AI Microlearning Platform  has been cobbled together into a learning management system . We need to create a seamless AI product into its own platform . Secondly, African Americans are afraid on entry into tech careers. We need to create a marketing campaign to drive them into training. Thirdly, our founding team have been working on sweat equity agreements for the past 2 years, to complete a pilot where curriculum was offered for FREE to see if the project was viable. They need to be paid salaries to remain committed to the project. Lastly, our Big Bet ISA is an  unfunded investment. When it is fully funded 60% of the tuition is paid for operation and the rest deferred until a resident secures a higher paying job. Currently we receive no funding until student has been placed in a higher paying job. 

New Profit - funding

Urban Mayors -workforce development contracts

NOBCO National Organization of Black County Officers

Comcast - advertising

Google- advertising