XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling Competition
LOS ANGELES (March 8, 2021) — XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, sponsored by nonprofit venture philanthropy organization New Profit and in partnership with JFF, today announced that 10 teams from 4 countries are advancing to the Qualified Teams round of the $5M XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling competition.
Launched in June 2020, XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling incentivizes teams to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of rapid training and reskilling solutions for individuals most vulnerable to employment loss in the United States. The solutions developed in this competition will reduce training time by at least 50% for occupations with a living wage and will be provided at no cost to the individual.
“As we saw unemployment reach new heights and some jobs completely eliminated as automation accelerated during the pandemic, the XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling competition became critical in providing pathways to gainful long-term employment,” said XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari. “I am energized by the number of great teams who entered the competition and thrilled to announce the Qualified Teams who will go on to compete for the grand prize. We invited stakeholders to reimagine the entire work process, focus on those with low wage jobs who are at higher risk of losing their livelihood and provide a pathway to the growing segment of the job market. Alongside New Profit, we’re proud to invest in the American labor market and better prepare workers for the digital revolution.”
Training solutions will be offered to 3,500 displaced workers early in the competition and then be expanded to help at least 25,000 displaced workers in the Finals Round. The best solutions, if adopted on a nation-wide scale, have the potential to transform the way workers train for more than 12 million jobs.
“XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling will create a future where all workers can rapidly attain new and more relevant skills to equal the pace of technological developments,” Dr. Monique Golden, Social Science Lead for XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling. “We’re looking forward to evaluating the impact of the solutions seeking to transform how we train and educate America’s workers.”
Qualified Teams were selected among 118 teams from 20 countries following an independent judging panel’s assessment of the teams’ choice of occupation, viability of proposed solution and methods of worker engagement. The 10 chosen Qualified Teams will be evenly splitting a Milestone Prize purse of $1,000,000.
“New Profit is proud to power XPRIZE’s initiative to rapidly train and place workers into higher-wage, higher-skill jobs,” said Dr. Angela Jackson, Managing Partner at New Profit. “Together, we are rebuilding an economy that puts equity at the core – centering the voices of under-invested workers and diverse innovators in every stage of the challenge design.”
The 10 Qualified Teams are:
Alelo, Los Angeles, California, USA
Dignity of Work, Spokane, Washington, USA
Pragya, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Practera, Sydney, Australia
WEKIT, Dubin, Ireland <– We’re part of this team.
VITAL, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Mississippi Coding Academies, Jackson, Mississippi, USA
SHIFA, San Diego, California, USA
HireMEE, Bengaluru, India
TEAM RE, New York City, New York, USA
Qualified Teams will have approximately two months for solution development. During this time, teams will develop their novel technological solutions, create platforms, develop training curricula, and prepare themselves for the first phase of testing.
XPRIZE and New Profit have also collaborated to appoint a panel of subject matter experts, employers and big-picture thought leaders to serve as the Advisory Board for XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling. The Advisory Board will remain in place throughout the competition to make connections, assist with strategic guidance, amplify the prize, and offer innovative advice.
Please see below for the XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling Advisory Board members:
Dr. Chris Laney, Senior Workforce Strategist, Emsi
Jomayra Herrera, Principal, Cowboy Ventures
Andre Green, Executive Director, Skillworks, The Boston Foundation
Janice Urbanik, Sr. Director of Innovation and Strategy, National Fund for Workforce Solutions
Katherine McKinney, Deputy Director, Workforce, JVS-SoCal
Jeff Wald, Founder, WorkMarket
Vinice Davis, Venture Partner, Imaginable Futures
Karan Chopra, Co-Founder, [email protected]
Lisa Neuberger Fernandez, Managing Director, Strategy and Innovation, Corporate Citizenship, Accenture
Additionally, in partnership with JFF, we’re leading engagement with the American workforce system by focusing on creating pilots of winning solutions with workers, evaluating them for effectiveness, and scaling them through partnerships with future-focused workforce boards. Our six workforce board partners were chosen from hundreds nationwide for their reputation in effectiveness and innovation. Learn more about them below:
Capital Workforce Partners | Hartford, Connecticut
Hampton Roads Workforce Council | Norfolk, Virginia
MassHire Central Region Workforce Board | Worcester, Massachusetts
San Diego Workforce Partnership | San Diego, California
West Michigan Works!, in partnership with Michigan Works! Southwest and Michigan Works! Berrien-Cass-Van Buren | West Michigan
Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas | Dallas, Texas
XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is powered by New Profit and JFF as part of the Future of Work Grand Challenge, which aims to achieve broader systemic change to help prepare 12 million Americans from underinvested communities for workforce success by 2025. The Grand Challenge is made possible by lead funders, Walmart and Strada Education Network. Additional funding is provided by Accenture, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Comcast NBCUniversal, Imaginable Futures, the Joyce Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Lumina Impact Ventures, Morgridge Family Foundation, Schultz Family Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The initiative also brings together a consortium of design and operating partners driving positive change in workforce development including Accenture, Brandeis University, Education Design Lab, Goodwill Industries International, and Jobcase.
For more information on the competition guidelines, advisory board, sponsors and partners, judging panel and more, visit rapidreskilling. xprize.org.
OUR SOLUTION
TEAM RE:AP
WEKIT ECS is a dynamic start-up company with more than 100 years of combined learning technology experience bringing together established XR experts, computer scientists, business specialists, and design technologists. We are passionate about our advanced XR training solutions that take holographic training to the next level.
Ravensbourne University London has an outstanding track record for its design-led innovation, technology-focused knowledge exchange, and applied research activities. Ravensbourne specialises in the fields of digital media and design, with a vocationally focused portfolio of courses, spanning fashion, television and broadcasting, interactive product design, architecture and environment design, graphic design, animation, moving image, music production for media and sound design. Working with world leading UK and international partners Ravensbourne create policies, processes and products driving the Digital Economy.
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Meet one of the $5M @NewProfit @jfftweets Rapid Reskilling @XPRIZE Qualified Teams, @WEKIT_community. Developing disruptive technologies using augmented reality and scanners to educate future workforces.
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Q&A
Why is your team competing in the XPRIZE Rapid Upskilling Competition? What inspired you? Why do you believe your team will win?
What barriers do you anticipate your team will face during your experience competing in the XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling?
Describe your technical solution. What’s the name of it? What occupation does it focus on?