Digisheds 'Sector-Ready' Studios

1. How can we develop a scalable and 'frictionless' employer-led digital skills 'bootcamp' model, which can attract, assess, and accredit a diverse talent pipeline to impact the global skills gap?

2. We are proposing we leverage and adapt our 'Digisheds Sector-Ready Studio' model https://www.linkedin.com/compa... - a series of industry-sector 'finishing schools' providing 12-20 week curriculums connecting high demand employer-led training and certifications with excluded groups delivered using a context-driven experiential learning approach - to sequence digital and creative skills masterclasses and learning modules. The model has been proven in urban 'jobcentre' settings (Brixton, London) targeting 240 long-term unemployed groups, and in a large UK metropolitan region in the West Midlands targeting 5000 unemployed 15-24 year olds.

3. The curriculum can be delivered in multiple geographic settings using our bespoke digital learning management platform, and is co-created with global professional services, training, and certification providers including Servicenow, Flyform, SCC, and Capgemini.

There have been much-publicised market failures in the delivery of sustainable and scalable digital literacy and employability routes to in-demand jobs, for excluded and disadvantaged groups. Access to skilled workers is already a key factor that sets successful companies apart from failing ones. In an increasingly data-driven future - the European Commission believes there could be as many as 756,000 unfilled jobs in the European ICT sector by 2020. 

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other emerging technologies are happening in ever shorter cycles, changing the very nature of the jobs that need to be done - and the skills needed to do them - faster than ever before. COVID-19 the global pandemic, will only make this situation of greater urgency alongside Brexit.

At least 133 million new roles generated as a result of the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms may emerge globally by 2022, according to the World Economic Forum. Many regions including Latin America and the Caribbean lack sufficient and significant region-wide and coherent economic and skills design, development and delivery capacity. Even in the West Midlands region there remains a significant gap in the regional digital skills delivery ecosystem.

1. We work with long-term unemployed (longer than 26-weeks in the UK), and inactive young people aged between 15-30 years. A key part of our brokerage and engagement model is the creation of 'frictionless' pathways - removing repeated engagement with 3rd party 'brokers' required to access learning or job opportunities. 

2. Before any training begins we run a 4-week 'transition' programme - delivered in partnership with specialist youth charity Brathay Trust - enabling participants who are low on confidence, or not 'work ready' to engage with our approach - Awareness|Choice|Action: 

• Awareness:  we support people to become critically conscious of themselves and their situations
• Choice: we support people to realise their choices and their power to take control of their lives
• Action: we support people to take action and make changes for themselves and others

3. Accreditation is packaged around our 'Digisheds T-profile' - which describe digital roles within an industry-simulation or real-time setting against a set of general competence, behaviours, and skills, and sector-specific capabilities which are scored, and endorsed by leading industry partners. This validates our curriculum aligned with 'journey to mastery' scores, enhancing confidence in both the young person and employers during hiring decisions.

1. The format of the planned Digisheds ‘Sector-Ready Studio’ (Latin America and Caribbean) programme is as follows:

1.1 Pre-Assessment (up to 4 weeks):

The core focus of the Digisheds ‘Sector-Ready Studio’ is to offer accredited, personalised training which enables learning by doing. This takes place in a purpose-built, fully equipped community space designed as a supportive and dynamic environment with access appropriate to lifestyle and childcare commitments, and supported with online self-study. We enhance each individuals transition journey by:

• Assessing health and well-being
• Discussing, exploring & planning career aims
• Identifying preferences for learning and working

1.2 21st Century Skills (4 weeks);

This phase of the Digisheds ‘Sector-Ready Studio’ focuses on those critical skills that make the difference for employability and employers; initiative, collaboration, critical thinking, oral communication, etc. It’s essential we equip participants with the right set of verified skills to give them the best opportunity of being employed in the digital market. To acknowledge and recognise its importance we will provide micro-credentials and badges to showcase a participant’s achievements for the most in-demand skills employers are looking for.

1.3. Immersive Technology Studio (12 weeks);

In this phase of Digisheds ‘Sector-Ready Studio’ journey target groups will be ready to fully immerse themselves in a digital innovation and technology project they wish to pursue for employment. Together with an employer partner they will work on a live social innovation project simulation designed to get them fully ready for a digital role in the areas of:

• Information Technology (IT) services (SaaS Platforms)
• Creative Technology (Digital Marketing/Media Production)
• Professional Services (Project Management and Business Analysis)
• Software Development (Agile Methods)
• Immersive Technologies (AR/VR/3D Modelling)

1.4. Skill Matching & Employers;

In this phase we will build on the Employer Mentor engagement to focus on ‘Talent-Match for Employer Roles’. We will do this through;

• Final alignment activities and job-ready matching of Participants (with their new skills) job role profiles and through to potential employers
• Discuss further learning opportunities with Participants to create a lifelong employability & learning plan
• Focused employer engagement and joint planning of hiring process
• Handhold Participant through hiring process providing coaching and mentoring (adopting a ‘Finishing School’ type approach)
• Close monitoring of the process so that we can continue to learn from its successes for the benefit of continued employer placements through the pilot, for a potential scale-up of the programme, and providing feedback to the MIT Solve team.

• Our solution is designed to provide the resilience, confidence, and capability to future-proof large groups of inactive, unemployed, or low-skilled workers facing uncertain futures. We embed contextual digital skills as a core signal of employability, which has been developed as a disruptive new concept model to prove our theory-of-change. 
• We ran a series of employer-led collaborative action-research projects branded ‘Love Your Place’ in 2017. These design-thinking events in London (on May 2017, see the video here), and Birmingham (on June 2017) were followed with a Swindon-based proof-of-concept of the new Digisheds bootcamps tested from July to September 2018 (see the publicity campaign video here and impact video here)  
• To engage key stakeholders with the new approach we have developed a bespoke  ‘frictionless brokerage’ format. This enabled us to engage large enterprises to source specialist content, tools, and certifications (e.g. Servicenow, IBM, AWS, CompTIA) to co-create curriculum pathways which remove as many ‘blockers’ to access as we possibly can. This format enables us to achieve one of our key objectives - delivery at scale - regardless of a persons starting position related to qualifications, experience, or location.
• We developed a not-for-profit recruitment model providing a ‘freemium’ level of access to our demand-led digital literacy and employability ‘up-skill’ and ‘cross-skill’ bootcamps. We call these bootcamps our Digisheds Sector-Ready Studios. 
• To enhance delivery in remote locations we commissioned a bespoke digital learning management system (LMS), built on the industry-leading Servicenow dataflow SaaS platform. This enables digital integration with employers and providers.

Our theory of change describes how: upskilling specialist Trainers + curating certified digital content = 'frictionless' integration with sector-leading employers.

Our inputs are:

1. Define Job Roles with relevant behaviours, skills, and competencies
2. Translate Job Roles into T-shaped profiles mapped to both technical AND social skills that employers want
3. Describe competencies as modules (contextual package for skills and behaviour) 
4. Build learning pathways 
5. Identify content for training and sequence
6. Run scalable train-the-trainer masterclasses
7. Engage groups of 20x student trainees
8. Build trusted relationships with large System Integrators of the fastest growing cloud/SaaS vendors
9. Integrate with hiring models of sector-leading employers

Our programme outputs are:

• Solve digital sector recruitment and retention challenges
• Energise new talent pipelines to power the local workforce 
• Provide opportunities to young people and returners at scale 
• Solve skills and talent shortages 

Our longer-term outcomes achieved:

• Reverse retention rates and high attrition levels
• Increase in total hiring ROI 
• Grow new careers and specialist certifications for trainers from non-traditional backgrounds (incl. tech skills)
• Reduction in core and digital skills gaps
• Provide a clear career path for new, redundant, and existing staff
• Provide access to diverse non-traditional talent

The success of our model can be seen through:

• Open University Evaluation Report: here
• Digisheds Impact Video: delivery of the programme was captured in a jobcentre setting in 2014 here
• Digisheds Impact Video: the Digisheds digital masterclasses were evaluated in this video by employers (including IBM), educators, and local government stakeholders here

1. Current: we are serving 216 people
2. 1-Year: we will be serving 5000 people
3. 5-Years: we will be serving 27,000

We recognise that in both the Latin America and Caribbean region context we could play an important role in facilitating delivery of digital literacy against a backdrop of low-level tertiary achievement, and access for disdavantaged groups. Additionally this would enable us to achieve our primary purpose of:

• attracting innovation and skills investment to develop sustainable not-for-profit recruitment and training models,
• creating digital jobs and start-ups at scale
• providing workforce planning expertise for smart infrastructure projects

Our core aim is to enhance a region’s GVA by directly tackling the current low penetration of high quality digital jobs which are available to unemployed, redundant, or low-skilled workers. To achieve real, measured, and sustainable impact across each region we will target 5000 young people (15 to 30yr olds) with impact success focused on achieving job outcomes (see our Can Do Digital campaign video here). Interventions are aligned with the local skills and industrial priority sectors: high value manufacturing and construction, creative and digital, environmental technologies, and medical and life sciences.

We have partnered with Holmes Noble a leading executive search firm to form a new not-for-profit community interest company - Holmes Noble Smart Social Foundation. We will build on our collective collaborations and alliances to grow new talent pipelines by engaging diverse, and previously untapped sources of new skills. As well as bringing new companies, and investments to these regions, we will support local companies to achieve their digital transformation aspirations enabling more resilient growth and export to new markets.

Barriers which currently exist are:

1. Identifying Core Resources - we need to substantially enhance our delivery capacity and physical locations.
2. Identifying Risk Funding - it takes investment to create investment and we need to identify funding and investments to enable us to scale our operations in a way that protects the quality and safeguards the outputs and outcomes of our target groups. 
3. Mapping Target Locations - within targeted geographies where large digital skills ‘cold-spots exist  

In order to achieve our goals and overcome our inherent scaling barriers both in the UK, EMEA, and globally, we have:

1. Core Resources Identified: Targeted locations through our networks and export credentials where resources are both available and substantial to enhance our delivery capacity and physical locations within targeted geographies.
2. Risk Funding Sources: We have identified funding and investments through relationships with Ethical VC or Angel investors. We will seek to bring in public sector funds to align and match with any private sector risk.  
3. Targeted Locations: We have mapped a number of digital skills 'cold-spots' across the Caribbean and Latin America which are accessible from our planned Jamaica, Canada, and USA bases.

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The Latin America and Caribbean regions provide the opportunity to expand our Digisheds Sector-Ready Studios into territories which have significant digital skills 'cold spots'. 

We intend to deliver:

1. A new scalable public-private model for digital skills & talent.
2. Embed our not-for-profit recruitment and placement subscription business.
3. Identify targeted locations for delivery of our Bootcamp Incubator hubs:
   1. indie TV, games and film 
   2. professional services and SaaS products 
   3. advanced methods of construction and manufacturing 

Full-time Staff: 8

Part-time Staff: 5

Contractors: 7

Our culture is built on an agency-style agile, design-led, professional services rhythm, whether working in the public, or private sectors.   We achieve this balance due to the quality and depth of the enterprise level professional services and consulting experience embedded in the core team. 

This enables us to draw on the extensive range of project and technical expertise required to be successful and compete in today’s fast-paced global marketplace. Our track record demonstrates our capability as a digital ‘innovator and thought leader’, with reference projects available to showcase our work with clients across a range of sectors and global locations.

Our Digisheds Sector-Ready Studio model enables us to quickly deploy our expertise, as we have developed and embedded efficient ‘fast-track’ staff and contractor onboarding, alongside train-the-trainer programmes and seamless processes.  We continue to invest in new roles to develop staff and resources which can enhance and supplement our existing strengths.

We are a confident, capable, and deeply committed team, and know from lived experience that our culture can absorb large-scale change and growth which will add even greater value for future stakeholders.  We have a clear mission and purpose, excellent base of technical and project management expertise, with established and growing networks both nationally and internationally. We are in a strong and unique position from which to continue to develop compelling propositions as we achieve our aspiration to become a globally competitive ‘digital skills and talent’ innovator. 

We have signed service level agreements with a number of sector-leading organisations who provide key services and capacity on our project interventions:

• Servicenow - https://blogs.servicenow.com/2020/next-gen-program.html 
• Capgemini - https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/2015/03/the-prince-of-wales-champions-innovative-community-programme-backed/
• Holmes Noble - https://www.holmesnoble.com/
• Brathay Trust - https://www.brathay.org.uk/
• Walsall Studio School - https://walsallstudio.school/t-levels/

Our business operating model is aligned to six (6) functional delivery areas which cover the end-to-end spectrum of capabilities required to support our local and regional skills and workforce development engagements:

• Digital Campaign Management: in-flight campaigns ‘Can Do Digital’; ‘Easy as 1-2-T’; ‘Future Talent Studio’
• Client Services: frictionless brokerage and client management for ‘Smart Places’; ‘Smart Business’; ‘Smart People’ programmes
• Digisheds Smart Skills Engine: attracting capital Investment to fit-out  physical incubator and training hubs in key digital ‘cold’ spots
• Recruitment & Placement: ‘attract, assess, align’ employer engagement and recruitment model
• Curriculum Design and Sequencing: leveraging our bespoke digital pre-apprenticeship, bootcamps, and ‘T Level’ models
• Research & Insight: future technology, future skills, and future workforce analysis

Our key customers and beneficiaries are:

• those experiencing in-work poverty (where the household income is below the poverty threshold) and
• the long-term unemployed (used to describe workers in the UK who are jobless for 27 weeks or more) 
• young men and women in underserved communities with motivation but no college ambitions
• degreed people who are under-employed and not fully contributing their potential to society
• transitioning ex-service personnel 

We will be seeking new income streams such as a share of regional skills devolution funds, private and other public sector match funding. We will additionally be looking to increase pooling of resources (a single pot) from SLAs with large enterprises (Capgemini, Servicenow, AWS, IBM), educators (Birmingham City University (BCU), University of Birmingham (UoB); Coventry University (CU), Walsall Studio School (WSS)), and public sector (Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, WMCA, SoSEP, GMCA, WECA).

The development of our portfolio of services across the West Midlands, UK continues to showcase our social and commercial value as a purpose-driven organisation, and ensures we are better placed to compete for skills, innovation, and consulting investment on a UK-wide and international basis.  

Our ‘frictionless brokerage’ engagement model is a key differentiator, which is brought to life with our not-for-profit recruitment and placement partnership with Holmes Noble, a leading executive search firm. The placement and subscription fees generated from filling vacant roles with employers, provides a sustainable revenue stream in each location to provide 'free to access' models for the most disadvantaged groups. 

The “T” in TPrize Challenge references transformation – and we want to support Tecnológico de Monterrey and La Universidad de los Andes to scale the impact and outcomes from this Challenge to multiple regional destinations. In doing so we want to help as many disadvantaged communities to prosper by connecting them with future-proofed 21st century digital skills and industry certifications from some of the leading software and product companies in the world.

We will provide the evidence-base and data which showcases how our tech-enabled Digisheds Sector-Ready innovations can be applied to promote lifelong learning opportunities across the region. Latin America and the Caribbean are facing the realities of a widening skills gap, but with tremendous potential to help solve this challenge embedded in its people.

Specifically we will use the prize-funding to unlock that latent capacity by:

• Launching a Digisheds Sector-Ready studio hub and digital literacy programme as an exemplar in a Latin America or Caribbean country which can be sustainably scaled to multiple locations and geographical contexts
• Collaborating with local employers and training providers to provide a train-the-trainer course to grow a pipeline of high-capacity educators targeting high-demand digital literacy modules and certifications within disadvantaged communities
• Providing the market and demand analysis audits and reports and identify seed-funding to support scalable alternative learning models, and equitable access to training programs across Latin America and the Caribbean
• Leveraging the donated expert mentorship, incubation and acceleration, IP registration, capacity building, and connection to scale the impact, grow infrastructure, and build capacity.

• Educators - Universities and research-based immersive technology hubs
• Employers - both enterprise and SMEs with digital job roles, and/or high quality certified technology or core skills training content
• Public Sector- national, regional and local government industry brokers who can unlock funding sources, and facilitate access to (donated) physical hub sites and resources
• Professional Service Firms - who can provide low-cost/pro bono legal, IP, or financial services to support start-ups or scale-up within our Digisheds Sector-Ready incubator hub.