Employment Accelerator Program

Our Employment Accelerator will provide on-demand technical, social, and critical thinking skills training for college seniors and recent graduates and connect them to entry level jobs at companies through our online job portal.

Our Employment Accelerator is aimed at creating a local workforce for the emerging Liberian economy. Through tailored training in entrepreneurship and leadership, computer literacy, and exposure to productivity tools such as google suite, asana/trello, slack,etc, we will develop a pipeline of young people who have the technical, social, and critical thinking skills for a changing local/global economy.  Think of us as a superhighway for job creation in the emerging world. Here’s how it works: A student gets recruited  through a rigorous application process. They are trained for four months (enough time to learn and experiment through capstones (with our project-based learning model)). Through our online portal and employer partnerships, we match them with relevant jobs across Liberia, which guarantees their employment and lowers hiring and training costs for partner companies. It doesn’t just stop there - creating job seekers. We also focus on job creation skills. Through our entrepreneurship curriculum, each fellow will have the training in starting their own business and have the option of joining our startup incubator to get support and mentorship. With this model, we’ll be tackling the current unemployment crisis twofold with already tested and proven job creation approaches.

Our Employment Accelerator seeks to fight youth unemployment in Liberia, which is at 85%, according to a UN report. Young people constitute about 65% of Liberia’s 4.4 million population. Macroeconomics wise, Africa’s population is expected to rise from 1.1 billion today to at least 2.4 billion by 2050. McKinsey estimates that if trends continue over the next decade, 72 million wage-paying jobs will be created, but 122 million new entrants will seek jobs. One can only imagine the challenges this population change will have on developing economies.

Our theory of change (Aspirations + Empowerment =Impact) is a formula from five years of experience learning and delivering youth empowerment programs in Liberia. We identify aspiring young leaders and create the platform to equip them with the skills and opportunities to create social change. Satta Wahab came into our program as a high school student in our Changeleaders’ Club. Upon her graduation, she interned with us while going to college. Today, Satta is a rising female entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of NazNaturals a company that makes organic haircare products. This is the approach we apply to the employment accelerator.

At the end of our first two years, we will train and place over 200 young people into decent jobs in companies across Liberia. By the end of our 5 years operation, our goal is to train up to 10,000 young people with the skills to find and create jobs for a fast changing local/global economy. Our solution targets college seniors, recent graduates and companies in Liberia looking for quality employees. By training and placing youth in decent jobs, we reduce the risk of idleness and increase the earning potential of young people, thereby reducing poverty in Liberia.

Track the number of young people trained and hired by companies - Over 200 young people trained and placed in decent jobs in our first two years

Track the number of young people trained, the number of jobs created through startups they create. - 10,000 young people with the skills to find and create jobs

Monitor and evaluate their progress through HR surveys and annual salary reports.

- Employee effectiveness and income growth

Our Employment Accelerator is the first program of its kind in Liberia that addresses the problem of unemployment in Liberia using a twofold approach anchored in technology. We are preparing young Liberians with the technical, social, and critical thinking skills that match the demands of a fast changing economy. Via our user-friendly job portal (first of its kind in Liberia), we will match young people with relevant jobs across Liberia. Our employment accelerator also focuses on the skills and creating the platform for fellows to create their own jobs and employ others. 

We have developed an online job portal that gives our fellows and partner companies the opportunity to create an online professional profile like Linkedin. Fellows can create a user account and upload their aspirations, experience, skills, set goals and track achievements, etc. They also have access to view and contact companies on the platform. On the other hand, companies can post from one to an unlimited number of vacancies depending on their payment plan. They also have access to our fellows and can recruit from the pull of talent.

Our solution will be delivered through workshops and seminars, a job portal to match companies to fellows, and an incubator for those interested in starting their own businesses. 
The job readiness training include: working with google suite (word, excel, slides, calendar), Slack, Asana, Canva and other productivity tools. 
Through our online job portal, we connect our partner companies to the pull of talents from our program. 
The Incubator will incorporate fellows interested in starting their own businesses and provide them mentorship, technical support and access to capital.

In our pilot phase, revenues from fees and other income generation schemes will cover over 50% of our annual operating budget in the first two to three years of operation. In addition, we will be offering co-working space rental, hosting events, and building paying relationships with companies for our job placement services. Young people will be charged a market sensitive fee with very reasonable and affordable payment plans. We will also keep fundraising as part of our sustainability strategy as we work to transition into a full fledged social venture.  In terms of our growth and scaling stages, the use of technology and increasing the number of young people we reach each year will be the focus. Growth through technology will allow us to keep our administrative costs down while growing our revenues.

There are several factors that could limit our program. One: the political stability of Liberia now that we are approaching national elections. As a country enjoying 12 years of peace after a brutal 14 year civil war, this is the first test of our democratic system. A second challenge has to do with recruiting top talent to deliver our programs. Experienced, top-tier talents are usually hired by government or major international NGOs with bigger budgets. In terms of program specific challenges, we fear not all work environments will fit (embrace) the skills our graduates will have, especially when we scale.

https://web.facebook.com/smartliberia/

SMART Liberia has been shaped and focused around the global goals; most especially goals 1, 4, 5, and 8 (no poverty, quality education, gender equality and decent work and economic growth). There is not a better way to work towards those goals than by joining fellow changemakers from around the world to brainstorm and co-create breakthrough solutions for the global goals. We need a movement of the brightest, most passionate individuals from everywhere to intentionally draw resources and work to solve our shared global problems. It will be an honor and a unique opportunity to join this community.

We are creating strategic partnerships for that will enable us successfully implement this program. We are partnering with a computer literacy program to conduct trainings in Microsoft essentials (Word, PPT, Excel). We are collaborating with an HR advisor to conduct trainings specific to on the job skills. 

There are programs such as iLAB, iCAMPUS and BSC Monrovia who are competitors.