Refactored.ai

The jobs of today will not be the jobs of tomorrow. Advanced technologies are rapidly changing the nature of work and redefining the roles and skills needed from the future workforce. Roughly 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been invented yet. Over 800 million global workers will lose their jobs as a result of automation and AI. 

Refactored.ai is the talent development and career transition ecosystem for the future of work. It provides on-demand training of critical tech and human skills, and facilitates seamless movements in and out of learning and work to develop today’s workforce for success in tomorrow’s workplace, at scale. Our platform will ensure that everyone —regardless of age, race, income, skill level or current occupation—has the opportunity to thrive in an AI-driven world. Our solution aims to bridge the existing opportunity and skill gaps, helping individuals overcome adversity and organizations overcome disruption.

“By 2030 as many as 375 million workers - or roughly 14 percent of the global workforce - may need to switch occupational categories as digitization, automation, and advances in artificial intelligence disrupt the world of work.” (The McKinsey Global Institute)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will impact every industry and profession across the world. In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The emergence of these technologies will increase productivity, customer satisfaction, and economic growth. However, it will also transform the workplace and redefine the roles and skills needed. Mundane jobs will become automated, workers will be displaced, and new jobs will be created. This will require businesses to restructure their processes and reevaluate their talent, strategies, and workforce needs. The key challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean is putting in place effective training programs to help millions of their workers gain in-demand skills quickly so they can shift to new occupational categories as new technologies are being adopted in the workplace at an increasing rate.

Refactored bridges the skills gap for mid-career, middle-aged workers, emerging students without market-relevant skills, and workers without degrees - those that are at highest risk for displacement. Our inclusive ecosystem nurtures lifelong learners and provides them with the opportunity for ongoing retraining. This will be critical as the emergence of new technologies continues to create new career pathways.

 We have served a highly diverse population, hailing from 45 different countries, ethnicities, races, religions, genders, education, and income brackets. We have impacted over 10,000 individuals. Our tech platform provides the practical and technical skills needed to succeed in the ever-changing AI/ML- powered workplace. Refactored’s interactive interface enables life-long learning and an opportunity to explore, grow, strengthen, and expand their applied AI/ML skills on-demand.

Refactored is a learning and career transition ecosystem that provides a scalable solution to keep workforce skills current and relevant, and to connect individuals to good jobs and rewarding careers in the midst of rapid technological advancement. The platform offers unlimited opportunity to grasp AI and ML concepts and skills, develop adaptable talent, and build high-performing data science teams. It also addresses the critical transitional steps required to seamlessly convert to an AI-powered organization.

• Transition to a Data-Driven Culture: AI and ML capabilities will need to be distributed and workers at all levels will need to become AI savvy.  Refactored increases data literacy across organizations and transforms employees into data thinkers. This will enable the development, adoption, and support of AI technology.

• Identify Future Workforce Needs: Refactored provides solutions to companies who are AI pioneers and the most innovative data solvers within their industries.  We incorporate this data into our platform to help companies accurately predict the new needs of the workforce and specific talent required.

• Real-time Data Assessments: Our platform provides real-time assessments, continuous feedback loops, and advanced data analytics to help monitor, report, and accelerate performance and learning efficiency.

• Reskilling the Workforce: Refactored will bridge the skill gap for mid-career, middle-age workers, emerging students without market relevant skills, and workers without degrees - those that are at highest risk for displacement. The self-directed learning platform empowers life-long learners with the opportunity for ongoing, retraining. This will be critical as the emergence of new technologies continue to create new career pathways.

Refactored is the only platform powered by AI that offers end-to-end solutions to mitigate the impending workforce transitions and wide-scale challenges that adoption of new technologies will bring. Refactored was designed to stay ahead of the ever-evolving technology trends and will enable the AI talent paradigm shift needed to retool outdated hiring processes and identify new skills needed for success. 

Refactored.ai will serve as the learning ecosystem of the future, teaching people how to translate key skills from one industry to another. Individuals will overcome AI-induced adversity by gaining future-ready skills and gainful employment – constantly retooling themselves for the future. We will see a substantial increase in the number of adults with relevant skills for future jobs and career advancement. Once upskilled, the platform will enable these individuals to communicate their new skills to prospective employers via digital credentials and gain access to data-driven jobs through Refactored’ marketplace. Refactored.ai will also empower organizations to embrace disruption by retraining their workforce, at scale. Rather than replacing workers, Refactored.ai will create career advancement opportunities by reskilling frontline workers and existing employees with domain expertise; decentralizing data capabilities and increasing data literacy across the organization. Refactored.ai will also promote skill-based learning to increase cross-functional collaboration and efficiency.

Technology dictates how we develop, grow, and scale. Refactored uses Jupyter to enable AI and ML solutions that create more effective learning experiences through personalization. As the learner progresses in their training, the input creates a more tailored curriculum path to address specific needs. This technology provides real-time assessment data and a comprehensive analysis of their performance throughout the process - vital for both the improvement of the learner and evaluation of the employer. It also enables our training to be virtual, interactive, and on-demand; providing more flexibility and accessibility to increase the number of data-thinkers and solvers.

There are a variety of established boot camps that provide job-ready skills. However, their pre-screening of candidates and geographic locations severely limits scalability, which is critical given the number of individuals that will be impacted by AI. There are also several online self-learning Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) options. However, they typically cater to the “top-learners” and require a strong foundational knowledge of data and technology – making this option non-accessible for the majority of individuals that will be directly impacted by automation and AI. We built an inclusive ecosystem designed to empower underrepresented minorities and help them take the digital leap; those with limited career pathways and opportunities for economic advancement. Refactored.ai’s AI-driven platform caters to any skill level and provides the pillars of support needed to grasp not only key data skills (technical) but also develop advanced cognitive capabilities (human skills) such as communication, collaboration, confidence, critical-thinking, perseverance, time management, etc. Finally, Refactored provides access toi projects and jobs to enable successful career transition.

Refactored has served a highly diverse population, hailing from 42 different countries, ethnicities, races, religions, genders, education, and income brackets. A large number of our learners are immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, we are impacting roughly 10,000 individuals. Our platform provides the practical and technical skills needed to succeed in the ever-changing AI/ML powered workplace. Refactored’s interactive interface enables life-long learning and the opportunity to explore, grow, strengthen and expand their applied AI/ML skills on-demand. Refactored changes the trajectory of their career path and provides a lifetime impact; every student who we train earns an average of $100,000 over three years.

With our current outreach and growth-rate, we will impact over 100,000 in the next 12 months and approximately 1,000,000 people across the world during the next three years. Given the market demand for data scientist talent and individuals seeking the opportunity to advance in their careers, we expect consistent, constant growth. Refactored will play a vital role in bridging the opportunity and skill gap to meet new industry needs and the evolving market demand. Refactored’s current impact will be magnified as we scale our footprint to enable more people to get jobs; more “Data Thinker” organizations with a more diverse, qualified workforce.

Refactored will focus on scaling and collaboration.  We’ll partner with companies who have/will be deploying AI solutions to seamlessly guide them through this transition. As we organically grow our corporate partners, we will grow our career development and talent pipeline offerings; which has proven to be extremely effective for existing partners such as Facebook, YearUp, Monsanto, and Freddie Mac. Our job-embedded “Data Challenges” will connect qualified candidates to employers, at scale. We have also partnered with JNTUniversity and a private education organization in India and will use the data and success of this pilot to continue our global reach.

 We are receiving interest from universities and private educational organizations from Latin America. We plan to expand our operations there by running pilots in areas where educational infrastructure is poor and educators are unable to teach advanced data science concepts. Refactored’s platform will empower students and teachers and serve as the “last mile” training provider to close the opportunity/skill gap. We will expand our corporate training and Data Challenges that will provide companies with a vetted, qualified pool of candidates, and students will receive highly-coveted internships and full-time positions.

One of our barriers when developing the supply of in-demand talent is ensuring that our society’s future data scientists have access to technology. Refactored can provide the tools and resources needed to transform individuals into data thinkers, but accessibility is integral to becoming adaptable, lifelong learners. 

 Another challenge we face is shifting employer mindsets around their training, hiring, retaining and advancement talent practices, especially around non-traditional talent pools.

We will expand corporate training and AI workshops to ensure skills meet the new industry standards and our partners can find, assess, develop and hire better talent through Refactored. Our success within Agtech and Healthcare to date (and advanced data analytics/algorithm transparency obtained from these partnerships) will enable us to expand across all industries. Refactored delivers open source, AI/ML powered JIT learning which is accessible and easily consumable for all levels of expertise. We will also leverage our relationships with Roxbury Community College, Year Up, and Texas Refugee Council to increase accessibility for low-income and underdeveloped communities.

We continue to partner with Strada in adopting their on-ramps to good jobs framework to provide our learners with promising career pathways.

Last year, our Founder and CEO Ram Katamaraja was invited to present Refactored.ai to the United Nations at “Future-Ready Skills: Helping Workers to Thrive in a Time of Rapid Technological Change” working session. Our solution generated a significant amount of interest in many parts of the world, including Latin America and the Caribbeans. We continue to explore these relationships in an effort to expand our global reach over the next two to five years. We are also planning to partner with a variety of Solver companies, including Apli, to expand our reach. 

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Our team is made up of passionate data scientists who are dedicated to creating a community of successful data scientists; driving the workforce and companies forward, maximizing innovation, and minimizing setbacks during this transitional period.  We create our own, innovative, data science solutions, training content and products to support this mission. The success and effectiveness of Refactored attracts companies who want to bolster their own innovation by integrating AI/ML solutions and third party organizations who recognize how vital strengthening data science capabilities and solving for the skill/opportunity gap will be for the future of the workplace.

YearUp: data training for undeserved young adults to enter sustainable, data-focused careers; as a result acceptance rates have increased from competitive industry leaders (e.g. Facebook, Tesla, Google). 

Credly: recognize our learners’ achievements through digital credentialing program.

Indigo Education: offer human skills assessment to our learners.

AWS DeepRacer: teach AI, ML and robotics through engaging, hands-on workshops.

MIT SOLVE: advance and scale Refactored solution to address the global “Work of the Future” challenge by utilizing MIT’s resources (expertise, human capital, and technology).

Strada Education Network: measure social impact of our programs and platforms. 

Texas Refugee Council: accelerate data science skill development and job-readiness. Veterans Coalition of North Central Texas: help veterans transition into civilian careers as data analyst experts, reenter the workforce, and advance in their existing careers. 

Colleges and universities: test the utility and ability of its platform to upskill data science skills, including JNTU, University of Texas Dallas, Saraswathi Pandian Engineering College. 

Bayer: onboard and upskill data scientists and data engineers having strong academic backgrounds but lack industry relevant skills and make them job ready.

B2C: training and career services for individuals with Income Share Agreements (ISA).   

B2B: corporate training, staff augmentation, consulting and tech platform licensing. 

Over the next decade, every industry will be transformed by AI and ML. The emergence of new and unconventional career paths will ensure Refactored is positioned for long-term sustainability due to skyrocketing demand and untapped market need. We continuously mold our course and skill offerings to fit the workplace needs and our JIT learning, on-demand platform provides the tools for ongoing development. Our platform will ensure that companies are ready for change and have the resources to succeed; the ability to be agile and able to respond quickly to changing and evolving market demands.

We have created revenue models that solve for the existing opportunity and skill gap. Individuals looking to build and develop advanced data science skills can sign-up with no initial payment. Refactored then receives a small percentage of salary throughout the first year of employment. Companies have various options that will strengthen the on-boarding process and upskill existing talent. Organizations can choose from the following options: 

• Access fee to the talent database

• Pay-per-hire fee

• Pay-per-employee subscription fee for courses that we offer. 

• Pay a licensing fee and we design/create custom course offerings and specific learning pathways.

Our goal is to drive transformational change. We are committed to building a world of data thinkers who embrace technology, and ensuring that individuals are equipped to succeed in the future workplace. Winning the challenge would enable us to leverage the TPrize resources, collaborate with other organizations within the TPrize network and use prize funding to accelerate our global reach and increase our impact.

We want to partner with organizations who believe in our mission and are committed to leveraging AI to achieve economic mobility and empowerment for all through workforce training and career advancement. Ideal partners include government organizations, including local workforce organizations, academic institutions, enterprises with a significant footprint in Latin American and/or Caribbean countries.

In addition, we would like to partner with MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to advise us on our implementation of AI technologies on Refactored. We can use their expertise and incorporate their learnings and innovation into our platform in order to maximize our impact and reach.