Thrivafy Work

Thrivafy Work is unlocking access to tech roles and opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx workers, especially women and femmes who are underrepresented, underpromoted, underpaid, and mistreated in tech. They are also affected disproportionately by covid-related unemployment.

We're developing an online tech micro-apprenticeship training method and platform that is convenient, effective, and inclusive to them. Regardless of prior tech expertise, our training enables participants to gain real-world and marketable tech skills by combining their natural tech acumen with hands-on, relevant experience in a supportive learning environment with facilitators who are like them. They also receive ongoing training, mentoring, and an external ombudsman to help them navigate any challenges that arise at work.

A July 2020 concept validation poll with 50 web users of colors yielded a 4.2 out of 5.0 rating with most desired benefits being real-time/real-world experience, convenience/access, time vs. money spent, and connection to like-minded people.

Thrivafy Work is solving 3 problems: 1. who is not included in tech roles and shaping solutions; 2. who is included in tech roles, shaping solutions, and, consequently, contributing to tech harm; and 3. who is developing ethical tech solutions for social good yet lack adequate support.

Black, Indigenous, and Latinx women and femmes represent <3% of  computing workers and executives, earn 62% as much as white male colleagues, and 78% experience gender discrimination in male-dominated orgs like tech. They have covid-related job loss 2-3 times greater than white counterparts.

Workers with computing training face systemic intersectional discrimination and bias that affect their getting hired, promoted, and retained. Half of them leave tech by age 35.

Workers without computing training may lack awareness of non-coding tech roles like user experience or technical writing and financial means for fee-based training.

White and Asian male-identifying individuals are primary tech shapers and  beneficiaries. They are tech-optimists who "move fast and break things." In 2020, 65% of Americans believe that “they often fail to anticipate how their products and services will impact society” describes tech companies well.

Non-traditional tech founders like Black women are developing ethical and beneficial solutions with 70% doing it alone.

Thrivafy Work is a platform with 3 components.

Mentoring
A common barrier for aspiring/current female-identifying tech workers is a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome. We expose them to tech contributors like them who have overcome this challenge. We teach them our mindset x movement = money (i.e., whatever we value) framework to promote beneficial mindsets and actions to boost success.

Training
An online tech micro-apprenticeship training method is used to enable flexible learning during 6-week phases. Furthermore, an ethical tech for social good framework is infused throughout the training.

We source course activities from real-world problems faced by founders of
color. Students exchange time and effort solving these problems to
benefit both themselves and the founders versus paying training fees.

In a supportive learning environment with facilitators who are like them, participants are introduced to broad tech roles, matched with natural best-fit roles using an AI-based matching algorithm, gain real-world and marketable tech skills and experience in the matched role, and earn digital certificates to document their expertise.

Post-Placement Support
Job placement is via partnership with workforce development boards. However, participants receive ongoing training, mentoring, and an external ombudsman to help them navigate any challenges that arise at work.

We conducted a concept validation poll with 50 general population web users of color. Cluster analysis of demographic and psychographic data and coded explanations of ratings revealed 3 groups of respondents, with 2 comprising target audiences and representing 62% of participants. Four benefits were most desired by these audiences.

Primary Audience (32%)
Black career strivers who are female-identifying, full-time employees aged 25-34, earn < $30K annually, and rent in urban areas within the US northeast and southwest. They may have an associate degree but low incidence of a bachelors degree. They read 1-3 books per month in print format. They are iPhone users and have wide-ranging annual app spend from $0-$100.

Secondary Audience (30%)
Hispanic mid-career thrivers who are female-identifying, full-time employees aged 35-45, earn $61-100K annually, and own homes in suburban areas within the US southeast and southwest. They have a bachelors degree and some have graduate degrees. They read 1-3 books per month in print and ebook formats. They are Android users and have an annual app spend of $10-$100.

Desired Benefits
Participants provided freeform textual explanations of concept ratings. Top desired benefits were: real-time/real-world experience, convenience/access, time vs. money spent, and connection to like-minded people.

Thrivafy Work is designed by members of the marginalized majority to benefit marginalized majority members.

The target audience for training is Black, Latinx, and Indigenous aspiring and current tech workers who are similar to the primary and secondary audience identified in our concept validation poll.

In addition, we will source course activities from Black, Latinx, and Indigenous founders.

Students will exchange time and effort solving these problems to

benefit both themselves and the founders versus paying training fees.

Founders who are often inadequately supported with workers and funding will benefit from having unpaid support without the need to train students.

Thrivafy Work is currently in the concept stage. What we learned from the concept validation poll is that the US Pacific Northwest is not ideal for this solution, given its high concentration of trained tech workers.

A common region for the primary and secondary audiences is the US Southwest. Arizona and New Mexico are key states for this region. New Mexico has a November 2020 unemployment rate of 9.4% as compared to 6.7% for Arizona. Hispanics are impacted most in these states (secondary audience). Consequently, the plan is to focus initially on New Mexico then Arizona.

1 Full-time staff

Thrivafy and the Thrivafy Work Team is led by a Black female founder. We are actively seeking other team members and partnerships from the marginalized majority. We also focus on building ethical tech for social good with inclusion being part of our framework.

In our framework, ETHICAL tech means technology products and services that are Enriching, Transparent, Holistic, Inclusive, Conscientious, Accountable, and Lovable.

Enriching: It improves, enhances, or makes someone or something better.

Transparent: It is easy to understand, monitor, or adjust as needed or desired.

Holistic: It is beneficial to all stakeholders involved its development, distribution, and usage.

Inclusive: It involves the marginalized majority in its development, usage, and monetization.

Conscientious: It is well thought-out, thoroughly vetted, and resistant to potential harms.

Accountable: It evaluates potential harm, takes responsibility, and remediates harm as needed.

Lovable: It is trusted and revered among servicers, buyers, and users.

Thrivafy Work is leveraging a design-thinking approach to developing a comprehensive platform for mentoring, training, and post-placement support. Participants are trained and supported by people who look like them and share their experiences. Key innovations include the following.

• Software-based  behavior tracking of participants application of the mindset x movement = money framework, along with analysis-based insights to boost success. Educational content is included in the app.
• Ethical tech framework for social good integrated throughout training.
• Tech harm mitigation skills and experience development integrated throughout training to address the Alphabet of Tech Harm that we have compiled through our research.
• Real-world, hands-on activities sourced from problems founders face versus canned problems.
• AI-based mapping of skills/experience to natural fit tech roles.
• An external ombudsman post-placement to support participants within the workplace.

Competitor solutions exist to address different elements of our solution, but  not the entirety of the solution. For example, self-study methods like books or online courses (Udemy, Coursera, Khan Academy, Skillsoft, LinkedIn Training, Teachable, etc.) provide canned course content and typically lack real-time interaction, mentoring, and workplace support.

Behavior-based apps like Noom, Goalify, or Headspace aim o improve mindfulness and action-taking to boost success but do not address the broader educational or workplace support needs.

Live online or offline courses may or may not include placement testing to assess readiness for the course but do not map skills/experience to tech roles and likely do not address the mindfulness and action-taking element.

Promoting ethical tech and mitigating tech harm are rarely addressed.

Thrivafy Work is in the concept stage. It is envisioned as comprising a software-as-a-service platform, app, and artificial intelligence models.

Software-as-a-Service Platform
A SaaS platform will support the end-to-end micro-apprenticeship training method (mentoring, training, and post-placement support) and assessment. It will support delivery of course modules that can be canned, live delivery of course modules that cannot be canned, secure completion and collaboration on activities, etc. Given the planned collaboration between founders and participants on potentially sensitive projects, security will be critical and will likely involve leveraging blockchain technology like Ethereum.

App
An app will support the mentoring component, including just-in-time training delivery and behavior-based tracking of the participants adoption of the mindset x movement = money framework. The app will likely support a to-be-determined subset of the training element. Finally, the app will support the external ombudsmen support by enabling participants to log and track issues.

Artificial Intelligence Models
At least two artificial intelligence models will be developed. One model will support mapping a participant's skills/experience to natural-fit tech role(s).  This model requires partnering with a workforce development board to gain access to a large corpus of resumes for job codes as well as job postings to build skills/experience models for non-tech and tech roles to support the mapping.

Another model will be built to support the behavior-based tracking and  analysis-based insights for the mindset x movement = money framework. For this proposal, a simple decision-tree will be developed as an initial solution to begin ethical data collection.

Thrivafy Work is in the concept stage and no technology has yet been developed.

Thrivafy Work will disrupt the status quo faced by Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women and femmes in tech.

We will carry out the activities of mentoring, training, and post-placement support through service delivery and solution development to broaden tech inclusion and decrease tech mistreatment in the short-term and medium-term and, ultimately, produce greater tech career fulfillment.

Furthermore, as we carry out the activities of training through service delivery, we increase ethical tech solutions and decrease tech harm in our society.

Within the next year, Thrivafy Work will move from concept to implementation in an ethical and user-centered way to ensure product-market fit. Our 1-year aim is to operate within in 2+ states with a proof of concept of each platform element. We will also build an inclusive team in the process and establish key partnerships with founders, workforce development boards, funders, etc. We will initiate IP filings to protect innovations.

After establishing a beachhead over the next year, we will expand our reach throughout the US. We will continuously develop key partnerships, evolve our platform, and develop/protect IP while expanding geographically. Continuous program assessment will be used to improvement the solution, technology, and outcomes.

Within 5 years, Thrivafy Work will achieve scale and operate throughout the US. We will expand globally into developed countries, given they are similar to the US.

The biggest barriers for Thrivafy Work are people and financial resources along with partnerships.

Currently, Thrivafy Work is pre-revenue and is being bootstraped with founder funds. Without external commitments, concept development has not commenced due to the capital required for a tech development effort.

Thrivafy is still an early stage startup. Most of our 2020 effort has involved customer-centric exploration of various solutions to disrupt the status quo of the marginalized majority in life, at work, and in life.

We're prioritizing Thrivafy Work because it is aligned with the current societal focus on improving employment opportunities and outcomes for our audience. This prioritization will enable us to better attract additional co-funders, contributors, and partners over the next 5 years.

We have begun to seek external funding and to recruit potential co-funders and collaborators to move forward on user-centered development. We will ramp up this effort at the start of 2020 as we complete the rebranding efforts by the end of 2020.

To address the partnership barriers, we are submitting to programs like this MIT Solve Challenge, because they include a networking and connection element.

We expect to continue working toward a critical mass in workers, funding,
and partnerships over the next five years. The other thing we expect and
welcome is to pivot as needed to gain greater product-market fit.

Because Thrivafy Work is in a concept stage, there is currently no outcomes data collected. As we build out our solution, we will assess and track 3 main outcomes indicators.

Engagement
Number of participants reached and participation completion rates. We will also track number of founders engaged and supported by participants.

Effectiveness
Number of participants who are placed within tech careers and tech career fulfillment over time. We will also track number of external ombudsman requests and successful resolution rate for workplace issues.

Reach
Given our goal to scale the solution throughout the US and globally, we will track expansion through the number workforce development board partners, states of operations, and, ultimately, countries of operation.

The Thrivavy Work Team lead, Melody Y Ivory, is the Founder/CEO of Thrivafy, UC Berkeley's 1st Black female computer science PhD, Wharton MBA, former University of WA professor, and former Google and GE product manager.

She has decades of broad and deep hands-on expertise in data science/ethics, software technology, and tech education across industries and organizations. She's been a Google innovation facilitator, and Microsoft contributor, and was an inaugural Bill and Melinda Gates Scholar.

Exposed to tech since the 5th grade (age 11), she has experience teaching tech to students with and without prior tech expertise and at all education
levels from middle school to community college and undergraduate
and graduate school.

She has seen and experienced firsthand tech's benefits and harms and brings this perspective to benefiting its marginalized majority and disrupting their status quo within the tech industry. She is a long-time tech fan who has turned into a fierce tech critic and advocate for ethical tech for social good.

Besides her tech accomplishments, she has decades of experience with building and managing a profitable real estate portfolio and running a property management business.

Her investments enable her to focus full-time on Thrivafy and Thrivafy Work. In addition, she serves as an angel investor through Pipeline Angels and similar organizations to fund marginalized majority founders who typically receive <1% of venture funding. 

We're seeking team members to join us who are passionate about changing inclusion and diversity within tech and delivering ethical tech solutions for social good.

Currently, we have not established partnerships. We are, however, actively working to do so through applying to programs like this one, which have a partnership facilitation element.

Thrivafy is pre-revenue. We anticipate both a B2G and B2C business model and will explore the best model as we develop our solution.

B2G
We see workforce development boards as the best customer for our platform. Such partnerships would enable us to offer training programs free of cost to participants and founders. An enterprise model will be explored where an annual subscription is paid based on the volume of participants served.

B2C
We see a similar enterprise model that can be explored for medium- and large tech organizations like Microsoft, Google, and others that are seeking an alternative pipeline to increase diversity and inclusion or upskilling of employees for higher skilled roles.

Thrivafy is currently bootstrapping with founder resources of $25K. We received a $1K SBA grant from economic disaster funding. Founder sweat equity to date is at least $275K.

We have begun to seek funding through grants. In early 2021, we will begin to seek angel funding.

All secured funding will go toward building a solution so that we can begin generating revenue and get on a path toward financial stability.

Thrivafy is currently pre-revenue. Thus far, we have only received a $1K SBA grant from economic disaster funding on May 5, 2020.

In 2021, we are seeking to raise $150K in grants and angel funding to support platform development, IP filing, and limited overhead.

Thrivafy aims to be a 100% remote business to limit overhead expenses. anticipate the following expenses for the $150K funding sought.

$110K Development
$20K Legal
$10K Equipment
$5K Advertising & Marketing
$5K Operations & Other

The Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US Challenge is closely aligned with our commitment to disrupting the status quo for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women and femmes within the US tech industry.

We have firsthand exposure to and experience with the challenges of inclusion and retention challenges faced by this audience. We also have deep and broad hands-on expertise with helping this audience to navigate these challenges through personal and tech skill development.

Like 70% of Black female tech founders, Thrivafy has a solo founder who is self-funding. The founder has the expertise and experience to develop a solution; however, doing so alone would not yield a viable solution in the marketplace anytime soon.

Participating in a program like Reimagining Pathways would provide access to critical funding, mentoring, and partnerships to accelerate solution development and benefits to this target audience with the ultimate aims being to boost their tech career fulfillment while supporting other marginalized tech founders and increasing ethical tech solutions for social good.

Thrivafy Work is an early concept. A broad range of partnerships and exposure are critical to successful development and launch of a solution to benefit the target audience.

We can benefit from EVERY FORM of support offered to accelerate solution development, IP protection, partnership formation, team member recruitment, funding, revenue generation, monitoring and evaluation, and exposure.

Initially, we would target program launch in New Mexico and then Arizona. A partnership with Workforce Development Boards in these two states would help to advance our solution most.

If there are other organizations for which we can partner for solution development support or technology infrastructure for lower cost would also be helpful for maximizing limited software development funds.