21st Century Capabilities and Careers

To help youth, students, parents and teachers looking beyond what they think they know in relation to future careers, capabilities and jobs over 2017-2030. This is captured in a 21st Century Capability Framework, delivered through a cutting edge program covering careers and jobs, with partners around Australia and the world.

The solution is for young people to be:

• future job ready when entering the workforce out to 2030
• motivated and inspired about future possibilities and opportunities including entrepreneurship
• desirable, highly sought after employees with transformational knowledge and understanding of future employer and workforce requirements
• able to adapt as jobs and careers continue to change enabled by 21st Century capabilities

When scaled around the world, this will change youth unemployment, disengagement, poverty and low aspirations by focusing on:

• Capabilities – Build future capabilities aligned to the horizons of 2020, 2025 and 2030.
• Careers – Experience different careers trucks from now to 2030 with insight into job roles, industry sectors and workplaces.
• Employment/Jobs – Understand employment trends and where the future job roles will be in a global labour market.
• Entrepreneurship – Foster an entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities with knowledge of a lean startup approach.
• Technologies – Invent and apply cutting edge and immersive technologies developing capabilities and challenging what is possible.
• STEM – See clearly where Science, Technology, Engineering Maths (STEM) sits within future jobs, careers, and develop skills and capabilities to match requirements.

The problem is that students, teachers and schools want to be able to experience jobs of the future now and understand from employers and industry where the jobs will be plus the skills required.  Traditional career development can be boring, unrealistic and too focused on current or out of date jobs.

With this program and activities, insight from enterprises, industry sectors, regions and governments is re-purposed for an education and youth audience co-designed with students, employers and teachers.

On ensuring student and youth engagement, a reference group helps to inform the activities and learning methodologies applying new discovery technologies.

This proposal will solve this problem as the program is already being run for:

• Primary schools
• High schools
• Higher Education
• International students
• Technical Vocational Education and Training/VET

with outstanding results.

It is underpinned by the nine 21st Century Capabilities:

1. Adaptability and Emotional Management
2. Communication and Influence
3. Digital and Social
4. Cultural and Global
5. Purpose and Vision
6. Learning and Mastery
7. Intelligence and Imagination
8. 21st Century STEM and Entrepreneurship
9. Career and Workforce

which come from workforce planning and development initiatives globally (employer/entrepreneur/industry demand driven), complimented by action research.

Target outcomes include capabilities, careers, employment/jobs, entrepreneurship, technologies and STEM.

The impact of 21st Century Capabilities and Careers is for young people to have the skills and abilities for future jobs, not only those currently available.  This includes primary and high school students, Vocational Education and Training and Higher Education students, disengaged and unemployed youth.

The program will be deployed to them via in-country partnership arrangements, collaboration with industry groups, employers and entrepreneurs, all supported by an online education and engagement platform.

Assess capabilities before and after program delivery - Develop 21st Century capabilities and careers

Numbers of young people employed and starting their own enterprise - Move into employment and entrepreneurship

Downloads in app store, engagement in online platform, partnerships with tech companies and startups - Apply technologies and relevance of STEM jobs

This solution combines edutech, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), Virtual Reality (VR) and machine learning to provide experiences that develop 21st Century capabilities and provide the opportunity to try out future jobs.

It is unique from others as it matches workforce demand and forecasts with career planning and development for youth, offering immersive experiences that broaden aspirations and positively impact on career and life goals.

The solution enables insight analysis via future job roles, 21st Century capabilities, industry sectors and regions/countries.

A co-design approach involving young people on the user experience, with a youth reference group, testing, feedback and validation, across multiple countries ensures that this solution is human-centered.

Many new aspects of the program have been developed based upon feedback and ideas suggested by young people and other stakeholders including parents, teachers and schools.

The solution will be accessed online and via mobile, supported by partners in each country who will assist in validating value, with the option of sponsorship and advertising income.  For young people this means a cost effective, affordable subscription with the option of paying it forward to support disadvantaged youth.

The plan for financial sustainability comes from fee for service income derived from workforce planning and development for employers and industry, entrepreneurs and startups, small and medium enterprise to large corporates, regions and countries.

Scaling the solution is the current focus as the program already exists and has been refined over the past 2 years.  This provides ongoing income and the test bed opportunity to work with young people to pilot new technology solutions and explore partnerships for growth.

The factors that may limit the ability of the solution to succeed include:

- cultural context across multiple countries where in country partners will provide advice

- AI may be too early so beginning with other technologies first will enable it to catch up

- getting the right data for analysis and machine learning may take some time to test and try out

http://careerblueprint.com.au/product/21st-century-capabilities-and-careers-program/

http://careerblueprint.com.au/product/real-day-out/

The reason I'm applying for Solve is to have a global, positive impact on young people in a very practical way, with knowledge of future jobs and skills that comes from working with employers and industry, entrepreneurs and governments around the world.

In Australia I play the role of youth advocate, Australian Apprenticeship Ambassador, entrepreneur and leader and I'm interested in connecting with other like minded people around the world.

Two key challenges that I'd like assistance with is the combination of new discovery technologies and mentorship on scaling up internationally including support for female entrerpeneurs.

Current partners include Career BluePrint, Workforce BluePrint, Australian Science and Maths School, IBM and Open Tute with support from governments.

http://www.careertools.com.au/

https://www.iworldonline.com.au/

http://www.futuregen.com.au/