MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Rex Academy Online Technology Platform

One-line solution summary:

Online secured eLearning platform that will make it easy to learn and teach IT Job skills.

Pitch your solution.

There are lot of technology jobs and we need to make it easy to move people to these jobs where they need to be in (tech jobs) from the jobs they are in right now.

There is no good platform that will easily let any tech educators easily teach and for tech learners to easily learn technology skills.

Our Solution is an online secured eLearning platform that will make it easy to teach and learn technology.

Our platform comes with an online lab environment, that is backed with AI, addresses different learning styles, has job focused pathways, interactive simulations and animations.

Students can learn all the technology skills in an interactive way and our platform is easy to use. There are around 222,000 new jobs in technology by the end of 2023.

There is a 26 percent growth of IT Jobs by 2026. With our platform students can acquire technology skills easily and get the jobs in technology field.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

It is important for everyone to learn technology skills.

There are lot of technology jobs and we need to make it easy to move people to these jobs where they need to be in (tech jobs) from the jobs they are in right now.

There is no good platform that will easily let any tech educators to teach and for tech learners to learn technology skills.

STEM jobs are projected to grow 13%.

The National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte report that the United States will have to fill 3.5 million STEM jobs by 2025, with more than 2 million of them going unfilled because of the lack of highly skilled candidates in demand.

IT jobs are high paying and are in high demand. There are more IT jobs in US then the talent pool available in USA. This leaves no choice for corporates other than bringing the talent pool from other countries for these high paying jobs. It is unfortunate that we are leaving US citizens to lower paid jobs and sometimes to no jobs while we are hiring folks from other countries. Many of the folks from other countries who are taking on these jobs do not have a computer science college degree either but their countries are providing a framework for coding boot camps.

We can easily break this cycle in USA by offering coding boot camps available to everyone at an affordable price.

Myself, Sandhya Padala (CEO of Rex Academy) was a IT hiring manager for several years and I know this information first hand and understand the gaps in the system and how easily we can fix and provide high paying jobs to many US Citizens.

What is your solution?

The solution is Online secured eLearning platform that will make it easy to teach and learn technology.

Our platform comes with an online lab environment, that is backed with AI, addresses different learning styles, has job focused pathways, interactive simulations and animations.

We have job focused pathways that include Web Development, Software Development, Networking, Cybersecurity and AI/Machine Learning Pathway. Our pathways prepare the students with IT job skills that are in demand, students work on real world projects and will be prepared for industry standard certifications. Students come out of our programs with a strong resume of portfolio of projects, certifications and confidence to take on the interviews and excel at their new IT jobs.

Our curriculum is project based so that students can learn concepts by doing activities instead of just reading the theory. Each lesson consists of activities, instructional videos, real world projects and assessments.

Our curriculum is also aligned with industry standard certifications like Microsoft MTA certifications, Oracle Certifications and CompTIA Certifications.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

We will increase access to high-quality, affordable learning, skill-building, and training opportunities for those entering the workforce, transitioning between jobs, or facing unemployment.

So far we served students who live in Dallas and who are 110% under poverty line. We work with organizations like Community Council of Greater Dallas and Nevada Hispanic Business Group, Community Colleges, workforce development organizations to understand their clients career needs and we will take their students feedback while developing the curriculum.

Students will learn technology skills that are required to earn a tech related job and earn a decent pay to take care themselves and their families.

They will be starting off with an internship or Junior programming job which might pay about $50,000 per year. Students will move onto higher paying jobs as they gain more experience.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Increase access to high-quality, affordable learning, skill-building, and training opportunities for those entering the workforce, transitioning between jobs, or facing unemployment

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US Challenge and your selected dimension.

Our intense training in high demand, most relevant technology skills for folks who do not have technology background will help them move to the technology jobs. We mainly focus on cybersecurity, AI, Data, Software and Web programming job pathways. Our training is project based and focuses on real world projects. As students go through the training they build a portfolio of projects that will build their confidence in the skills and also a resume with projects. Our training will also prepare the students for industry standard certifications. Certifications and a portfolio of projects will help our students prepare for technology jobs.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Dallas, TX, USA

If your solution is already being implemented in the US, in which US state(s) do you currently operate?

Texas
Minnesota
Mississippi

In which US state(s) will you be operating within the next year?

Texas
Minnesota
Mississippi

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community

Who is the team lead for your solution?

Sandhya Padala, CEO at Rex Academy

How many people work on your solution team?

Full Time Employees - 7

Part Time Employees - 11

Contractors/Vendors - 4

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization?

Working with non-profit organizations like Community Council of Greater Dallas who serve community who are under 110% poverty line, Nevada Hispanic Business Group who serve Hispanic community, Jones Community College in Mississippi state. Work with Women shelter programs.

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website, provide a link here:

https://tlp.rex.academy/

If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new technology

Describe what makes your solution innovative.

Our main competitors are General Assembly, Code Your Future, Dev Mountain, Hackreactor, Springboard, Udemy, Coursera, Lambda.

We make it easy to learn and teach technology skills. Our solution diffuses the fear of learning technology.

We have an embedded online lab environment, where students can practice coding, cybersecurity tools, networking labs on cloud virtual machines while watching video or animation lessons on the same browser. All our lessons are very hands-on. We also provide interactive simulations to provide hands-on experience for hardware related projects.

All of our lessons are Gamified and students earn points as they progress through lessons, assignments, projects and quizzes.

Our AI platform through Q&A and by observing students learning style will determine the learning style of the student and will present the content accordingly.

Tech Authors from all over the world can use our environment and make their books come live with the online lab environments.

Describe the core technology, if applicable, that powers your solution.

Our platform uses AI to

1) learn the learning style of a student and present the content in the correct learning style.

2) predict the possibility of student dropping a class and notify the teacher or class admin to proactively engage with the student so that student finishes the class

3) suggests specific topics that students could practice more so that they can master all the content

4) suggest the next possible classes that students could take.

Our cloud environment provides virtual machines with the coding editors, software and tools that are needed for students to practice the latest tools that are being used in the corporate world.

Our platform provides technology authors to be able to create video lessons, interactive simulations, interactive content for their lessons, online coding editors, virtual machines for any kind of tech lab environment on cloud. Our environment will make technology class very hands-on on our application that works in a browser.

Students can attend their classes and learn using a chrome book or a tablet or any basic device that has a browser , need not be a full computer.

Strong and detailed analytics at every level provides the students, teachers, admins, curriculum writers with detailed information on how learning can be improved.

Provide evidence that this technology works.

We use online lab environment on Azure. Our platform is built upon several opensource like Moodle, VPL and custom coding. Our curriculum is built using Camtasia video recording software, adobe animations, captivate Instructional Design, Autocad for interactive simulations, H5P activities and several other curriculum authoring tools.

Please Click Here to Watch Our Platform Video

Please Click Here to Watch Our Cybersecurity Curriculum

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Audiovisual Media
Internet of Things
Software and Mobile Applications

What is your theory of change?

Our solution is all project based, builds students resume with a portfolio of projects and give them confidence with their first job . Also the preparation for industry standard certifications will help them with the concepts, confidence to face the interviews and will get them more interviews. Our self-paced, video lessons will help the student to go back to the lessons multiple times as needed. Our Pathways do not assume any prior knowledge and will take a student through 600 to 800 hours of rigorous learning to acquire brand new skills for the high demand and high paying jobs.

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Pregnant Women
LGBTQ+
Children & Adolescents
Elderly
Rural
Peri-Urban
Urban
Poor
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
Persons with Disabilities
US Veterans

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many people did your solution serve in 2019? 2018? 2017?

500, 6000, 3000, 1000

What percent of the people you served in 2019 were between the age of 15 and 30?

41-60%

What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?

Partner with non-profit organizations like Urban Leagues, Workforce development organizations across the country who work with underserved community for workforce development.

Partner with Community colleges like Jones College that are working on state wide initiatives for workforce development.

Partner with Universities like Texas State University who are willing to offer Coding Bootcamps

Partner with Government initiatives to train veterans, under served communities that are focused on workforce development.

Running huge campaigns to educate tech skills hiring managers regarding the benefits of hiring students from our classes.

Partner with IT job placement firms like Robert Half, Manpower, Adecco, Kforce to place the students in tech jobs that go through our training program

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?

Next Year - Cash Flow

Next Five Years - US as a country need to prioritize IT job skills / technology workforce development.

How do you plan to overcome these barriers?

Applying for these kind of programs and fund raising from social impact funds and investors.

Run a massive campaign to educate tech skilled workers hiring managers on our preparation and show a comparison of hiring a remote worker in India or Ukraine or Mexico vs hiring a student from our classes as a Junior level programmers or Interns.

Cost would be the same
Tech skills expertise level would be same when compared to hiring a junior level resource.
will hire someone who is extremely motivated
will hire someone who understands US culture and work environment.
will provide employment to US citizens

Educating through social media campaigns, lobbying, working with Government agencies.

What outcomes data would you like to be collecting that you are not yet able to collect?

All of the following data on students:

Amount of time it takes to find a job

Number of interviews

Salary Growth over 5 years

Career Growth over 5 years

Clear comparison of the IT skill level, communication skill level for coding boot camp student vs a junior level offshore resource.

About Your Team

What type of organization is your solution team?

Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit

How many people are on your leadership team? (Of these, please provide the number of individuals from your leadership team that are full time, part time, and volunteer)

In Total 22. Full Time - 6, Part Time - 12 and Vendors - 4

What is the number of individuals from my leadership team that attended community college for at least one year?

1

What is the number of individuals from my leadership team that received a Pell grant as a college student?

1

In what year was your organization founded? How many years have you worked on your solution?

We have pivoted our model to online platform in December 2019. We are working on this solution from 11 months.

Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

We have strong Product and Sales Team Product Leadership.

Sandy Padala – Tech background, led 200+ global team members and Serial entrepreneur

Tapu Ahmed – Computer Science Educator, Curriculum Writer

Vamshi Geendru – AI and Data Expert, Studied Strategy and Business from MIT.

Stanley Page – Sales Experience for the 20 + years at Apple, Pearson.

Sainath - Master's in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University.

Haley Currence - Computer Scientist at Large. She is an African American with 2 year of experience in teaching and operations.

What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?

We partnered with YMCA and Community Council of Greater Dallas. We are delivering the solution through our online platform.

Your Business Model & Funding

Partnership Opportunities

Why are you applying to the Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US Challenge?

Help with sourcing, under privileged students to attend our training programs.
Help with finding partnerships with organizations like Community Council of Greater Dallas, Urban Leagues that can source the under privileged students and might be able to pay for the students.
Help with warm introductions with other foundations similar to Morgridge Family Foundation, New Profit who can support our program
Help with locating and applying for grants that can support our programs
Will utilize the prize money to apply for grants to fund our program to serve underserved community in partnership with workforce organizations.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Product/service distribution
Funding and revenue model
Board members or advisors
Legal or regulatory matters
Marketing, media, and exposure

Please explain in more detail here.

Would like foundation key stakeholders to join as our board member or advisory board and help us with

Working with foundations, Grants, Workforce development related organizations, corporates to change tech state of US Tech Skill worker situation.

There are plenty of high demand and high paying IT jobs. I myself was a IT (Information Technology) hiring manager with over 200 people on my team with 500M budget to work with, but the biggest challenge was talent pool. We can create our very own US IT talent pool without needing a 4 year college degree program.

We need a strong collaboration with Corporates that are hiring IT Job skilled employees, workforce development organizations who can fund the training and motivated students to commit for 6 to 12 months.

What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?

1. Workforce Development Organizations like Texas Workforce Commission

Purpose of partnership:

i. Source students who are unemployed and looking to transition into IT jobs and

ii. funds to pay for the student training,

iii. find employment to students.

2. Community Colleges, Universities that could offer Boot camps

Purpose of partnership: Offer courses that will prepare student for IT careers along with certification preparation. Offer self-paced or asynchronous or synchronous instructor led online classes.

3. Community Organizations like Urban Leagues, Community Council of Greater Dallas, Women Shelter Organizations, Faith based organizations that serve under served community.

Purpose of partnership: Source students looking to transition into IT jobs and funds to pay for the student training.

4. IT Job Placement firms like Robert Half Technologies, Manpower, Kforce, Adecco.

Purpose of partnerships: Find IT internships or entry level IT jobs for trained students.

5. Corporate HR Summits :

Purpose : Educate corporate HR about the

i. coding boot camp programs and the benefits of hiring our own country pool

ii. reskill their current employees whose jobs are going away and send them to train in IT Job skills as they already know the company's culture and business process , it will be a win win for everyone.

6. Government Funding sources: SBIR, STTR, NSF etc..

purpose: Funding source to offer training and run operations

7. Foundations like yours that serve education organizations like ECMC foundation.

purpose: Funding source to offer training and run operations