Sol’s Arc Digital Employment Platform

Persons with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities have the lowest rate of employment in comparison to other disabilities in India. 90% of Persons with Autism and disabilities are unemployed. Majority of PwD’s in India today are not able to earn livelihood due to lack of adequate education or training. (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1998). This eventually affects their social, economic well-being and pushes them into the cycle of poverty.

Our Solution focuses on improving employability and life outcomes for young adults with Autism and Intellectual disabilities by leveraging technology to provide industry approved training across various sectors and disseminate this through partnerships with various civil society and state Governments thus building an inclusive ecosystem for accelerating employment for this unserved population.

The technology we have adopted is a Learning Management Platform which enables access to learning courses and evaluations through various devices like mobiles, tabs & laptops.

According to Census 2011, there are an estimated 81 lakhs young adults in the age group of 15 – 24 years who have Autism & Intellectual Disabilities (ID- 2% (NIMH NSSO Survey (1991) RCI Report; Autism-1.5 % (CDC 2014 American statistic as no study in India) living in India. More than 90% of these young adults are unemployed today. And even of the ones employed more than 70% work in the unorganized sector, making them most underserved population today.

These high unemployment numbers are due to many factors -

• Inaccessible Vocational courses – According to UNESCO only 1-2% of PwD’s in developing countries receive education (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). In India we face similar challenge as courses are not mapped to the needs of this population.
• No certified & Standardized courses – The Qualification Packs developed by governing bodies are not adapted nor certified by sector councils or industry thus making youth unemployable in the organized sector.
• Job descriptions are not mapped-  Jobs are not mapped as per the abilities of this population hence the industries lack knowledge of where and how this population can be included.
• No accessible Technology-solution- During the pandemic, the population that got left behind the most were young adults with disabilities as none of the digital solutions were accessible or intended for this population. 
• No institutionalized proven model- There is currently no model which is tested, replicated and scaled leading to sporadic efforts but not sufficient learnings to tackle the problem at scale.

The target population we are working with are young adults with Autism & Intellectual Disabilities. Their exclusion starts from early school years where late identification and non-inclusive classrooms result in them dropping out of formal schooling resulting in most of these children not achieving even basic literacy and numeracy skills let alone job readiness. As they grow up, they face a lack of formal programs or solutions that will help them transition to adulthood and acquire jobs that are appropriate to their needs. NGO’s working with these populations are currently using the sheltered workshop model which merely keeps them occupied and does not lead to any financial sustainability or skills that equip them for an independent life. These young adults therefore face a very bleak future and most of them land up in institutional homes in their adulthood remaining dependent all their life.

Sol’s Arc has been working in the space of inclusive education since the past 17 years. In our journey into a decade of our work we realized that no matter what we do directly with these populations within our institutions the world outside is not ready to include them. We understood that the shift needed to happen outside and therefore our focus shifted to building an ecosystem that can enable inclusion of this population in formal employment. Our solution therefore understood the needs of this population and identified the systemic gaps that can be addressed across the ecosystem. 

Here are the areas where our application is aligned with the challenge-

• Alignment to target Population– Our work is dedicated towards an underserved population of India, Young Adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities to provide vocational skills training by leveraging a digital platform for learning.
• Alignment to the Problem– Our work addresses the challenges of lack of skills, lack of employment opportunities mapped to the market needs for the underserved population to be able to get employed in the open market.
• Alignment to the solution – Following are two areas in which our solution is aligned to the MIT Solve Solution.

• Developing certified courses to meet the demands of Employers - We engage with the industry partners across various sectors to map jobs, develop curriculum and build employment opportunities thus connecting Young Adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities to the demands of the employers.
• Leveraging Technology- We have adopted a Learning Management Platform to provide access to digital literacy & vocational training thus increasing the participation of the young adults with disabilities in Indian labor market.

Mrs Sonali Saini – founder and Executive Director of Sol’s Arc  and comes with more than 25 years of experience in the space of inclusive education. She has her Masters in Special Education, Counselling and Management.

Below are the features of the solution that makes it innovative-

1. An Ecosystem Approach- We built a solution that not just focuses on young adults with Autism & Intellectual Disabilities but on the entire ecosystem. From Job mapping to development of content to obtaining certification, internships and eventually employment it addresses the current challenges and builds a holistic solution mapped to the needs of industry.
2. The power of collaboration- As an organization we understand that to create a scalable model we have to leverage existing resources and thus believe that collaboration is the mantra. We partner with civil society, academic institutions, government, industry partners, sector councils etc. to co develop as well as implement the program across the country.
3. Leverage Technology - We know that the Covid-19 is here to stay for a some time. Disruptions and closures are now the functioning norms and thus technology will play a large part in continuing education during these times. The technology uses a stable white label learning management platform that can be used to access the vocational course content in multiple languages, track and monitor progress, hold events. This tech solution can be used in both online and offline settings and across various geographies and is thus easily replicable.

We have adopted a white label Digital learning Management System called Course Play, to train young adults with Autism and Intellectual disabilities on vocational and employability skills.  This learning technology solution enables teachers to systemically deliver employability and life skills training to the students in virtual and non-virtual setup, gives access to students to course content, reading materials and tracks their progress on each course. Following are the features of the platform -

• Accessible – The platform and course can be accessed through various devices such as laptop, tablet, iPads or a smartphone and also follows the latest accessibility guidelines.
• Unique ID for Students and Teachers - Each user i.e., teacher and student get their own unique ID and password to ensure the progress is tracked.
• Course Management: The Group learning modules are systematically structured which are assigned to teachers and students.
• Discussions: The Teachers/Ngo partners can host discussions for different courses and provide answers to learners during a session
• Module Formats: Creative and Interactive training formats such as quizzes, videos which include YouTube links, assignments, slideshows are part of this platform. Our presentations have voice overs in different languages.
• Announcements: The Teachers/Hosts can send alerts in the form of announcements to any group of users thus enabling the communication process.
•  Performance Evaluation: Track performance scores against role benchmarks and get training recommendations and also indicate the progress of each student.
•  Certificates: The students are provided with certificates on completion of the program.

We address the problem that more than 90% of young adults with Autism & Intellectual disabilities are unemployed in India today thus leaving out more than 10million productive individuals out of the job market. Here is our theory of change to address this problem.

There are over 10 million young adults with Autism & Intellectual disabilities in India. While the % of population is significant it is also spread out through various contexts and geographies thus making it difficult to identify and recruit them. However, through our innovative model where we leverage both technology and partnerships we believe that we will in the next 17 years impact the lives of 1 million individuals with Autism & Intellectual Disabilities in India thus increasing employment for this population by 333% .

Below are the Impact Goals for the Next 5 years and the modality of implementation is through various partnerships-

Here is a glimpse of the journey forward for the next 10 years:

We use the following indicators to measure the success of our program by measuring increase in-

1. Number of young adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities trained in vocational and employability skills 
2. Number of young adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities employed in Open Labour Market with fair wages and are retained
3. Annual growth in per capita income for each individual employed
4. Increase in domestic material consumption
5. Average hourly earnings for persons with developmental disabilities 
6. Proportion of young adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities (18-30 years) in vocational training.
7. Proportion of young adults with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities with an account at bank or other financial institution or with a mobile money service provider 
8. Inputs for Development of National strategy for employment  of young adults with Autism and Intellectual disabilities

Below are anticipated barriers to accomplish our goals for next 5 years -

1. Technical Barriers - Even though there has been an increase in usage of digital technology in India, PWD’s in the lower socio economic stratum rural areas have minimal access to devices, data and internet which can hinder the training of these populations.
2. Market Barriers - There are two types of market barriers that we anticipate -

• Lack of commitment from Industry Partners for Employment opportunities -  Many Industries/ companies don’t have a mandate to employ young adults with disabilities or have the perspective that these populations are not employable .
• Employers’ knowledge, capacity, attitudes, and management practices : Many evidences show that employer have limited knowledge on development disabilities and how to support these individuals at work place this can hinder retention of these population at workplace

3)  Financial Barriers - Financial constraints in the form of funding will hamper expansion and thus impact scaling of the project.

4) Cultural Barriers – The belief that people with disabilities can be employed in the mainstream workforce especially for this population is a he barrier for parents enrolling students in such a programs as well as employers committing to employment of this population.

Here is the Mitigation plan for each of the barriers -

Currently, we have 10 full time team members on this project which includes program lead, outreach lead, rural solutions lead,  curriculum developers, trainers, teachers, special educators, and project manager. They are supported further by the organizations HR, Finance and Operations teams. 

We at Sol’s ARC are team of specialists like counsellors, disability experts, teachers, social workers, curriculum developers along with technology experts. Our program team has strong mid-career professionals in the area of impact, operations, finance, making us unique in not only having the expertise but the knowledge to practically implement solutions. Below is description about team’s experience and background-

• Sonali Saini – Founder and Director with background of Special Education and Management. She has 25 years of experience in building inclusive solutions and been on various National, International and Government committees.
• Namrata Bachani – (Project lead) with Business management background from ISB having 18 years of experience in running her own company in childcare and executing a scalable model across geographies.
• Navleen Chandhok- (Curriculum developer and Trainer) is a special educator  with 15yrs of experience in teaching students with special education. Her expertise includes developing curriculum and modules for teaching & training students, parents, teachers, and other professionals.
• Priti Patel (Digital Lead) has 18 years in the field of education and worked for the development of people with special needs. Her areas of expertise are technology, content development, training for specially abled students to integrate them in the mainstream.

We believe that embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion as organizational values is a way to accomplish positive outcomes for the team as well for providing equal job opportunities for most underserved population of young adults with Autism and Intellectual disabilities. Listed below are approaches Sol’s ARC are practicing and aiming to diverse equitable and inclusive leadership team

• Creating diverse, inclusive and equitable work environment - We have worked on process that would make Equity, Inclusion an integral part of the work process and routines right from people sourcing, hiring process, onboarding and other, for example – we conduct an audit on understanding cultural perspectives
• We have team members from diverse perspective and backgrounds belonging to various religious, ethnic, cultural. Moreover, we also have employees who are parents to children/adults with special needs
•  To have inclusive work environment, we share working space with our students with Autism and Intellectual disabilities thus giving us chance to interact and be part of the cause closely.  
• We practice collective learning and curriculum/content development through rigorous brainstorming sessions to ensure PWD are center of our interventions

Collaboration is a fundamental value we imbibe to influence and bring collective impact, below are partners that we are engaged -

• Government: to standardize job roles through validation. Eg- Skill council for Persons with Disabilities, Retail Association for Skills Council of India
• Industry: to map jobs, build curriculum, increase employment uptake and sensitization. Eg- Amazon, Future Group, Lemon tree Hotels
• NGOs: to scale and implement program. Eg- Enable India, Action for Autism etc.
• Academic Institutions: To make their training programs inclusive. Eg-ITM College, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• Organization & Program Capacity: to build internal capacity. E.g-ATMA, Bridge Span, J-PAL.

Below are opportunities we seek through the application to Future Work in India and Indonesia Challenges-

•  Access to Industry partners - To building a ecosystem for collective good
• Peer Network – To partner with other organizations, industry partners for enabling employment for young adults with disabilities.
• Support in refining Project Impact Strategy and Scale up Plan

 Financial Support  so that we can scale our solution and reach the last mile.