Virtual Internship Programme

With tech disruptions happening at a rate faster than ever, learners often find themselves struggling to secure their place in the corporate world. In addition to this, remote working becoming the new norm has further tightened this struggle. To tackle this problem, we've carefully crafted our Virtual Internship Programme [VIP] that empowers learners with a skill set which gives them an edge in the market.

The VIP equips learners with the technical & soft skills needed to function in this new normal. It aims to potentially reduce the global skill gap that persists and thus, reduce the discrepancy between employer-employee demands as well.

If scaled globally, this programme has the potential of bringing about a revolutionary outcome as once learners are equipped with skillset as per employer demands, they'll be able to land their dream jobs and contribute with an enhanced productivity to the organization.

Our target problem is the skill gap that has long existed and worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic. This skill gap isn’t bound by any region or locality and a transformational platform was needed to tackle this worldwide issue.

Our research helped us identify there is a significant gap in skills that are sought by the employers versus those taught by educational institutions (reported by ILO). Just in South Asia, over 150 million people are expected to enter the labor market by 2030, with UNICEF reporting that the region, already gripped by high graduate unemployment rate, isn't quite prepared to manage this influx because of a skills gap as well as mismatch. The situation isn't much different in United States, where a McKinsey article notes that that almost 40% of employers don't find the employees with necessary skills. Additionally, we found that the QS skills gap report notes that problem-solving, communication, creativity and data skills are some of the major gap areas. The WEF in a recent report also highlighted that industrial demands have shifted towards a more concrete skill based approach.

All of this indicates that there's a discrepancy between employer-employee demands and upskilling/reskilling is one major solution for this.

Chipkoo GCVIP is a 3-month long program conducted virtually, focusing on four key components 1)Core Competencies and Skill Building 2) Project Based Training 3) Mentorship 4) Networking. The GCVIP is mapped on the NACE model for career readiness; that is based on eight core competencies. Alongside this, we've aligned our skills framework with WEF & Deep Learning to provide learners with an enhanced learning experience. The program was previously spread out across 4 weeks of mentoring followed by 4 weeks of project experience, however we've now revamped it in a way that an interns spends 7 hours a day working with the organization they're assigned to, and 1 hour a day attending mentoring sessions with our esteemed mentors. 

Interns use modern communication and project management tools for carrying out their tasks. 

This program is tailored to meet the expectations of the young learners and it involves industry leaders from across the globe. Our esteemed panel of mentors enable young learners to learn from first hand experiences of the industry leaders themselves as well as it gives them an insight on how
to tap corporate demands. 

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Our solution primarily targets learners between the ages of 19-25, who have just finished off with their education and are struggling to make their way into the corporate world. These learners despite having relevant qualifications, often find themselves struggling to secure entry level jobs since they often don't have a skillset that's aligned with employer demands. The mismatch between employer-employee demands not only creates a state of confusion, but further tightens the pathway to the corporate world.

To have a deeper understanding of their struggle and to develop a solution that targets this issue at it's core, we made use of an extensive market research. This research coupled with our own experience of working as a hiring manager helped us breakdown key employer demands. Alongside this, thinktank findings were also aligned with the best global skill frameworks i.e. NACE, Deep Learning and WEF, to narrow down a skillset that'll reduce the employer-employee discrepancy to a great extent. All these collective efforts were brought together in the form of a skills framework that's designed and delivered by industry experts.

We've also added the element of projects within this internship, that allows interns to develop an insight on how the corporate world practically functions.

Research indicates that digital skills are of utmost necessity in any and all fields of work and since this challenge talks about equipping individuals with a minimum of digital literacy skills, we believe our programme fits its scope perfectly. The VIP equips learners with employability skills which include both; soft skills & digital skills. In addition to this, our projects involve tasks that are primarily based on improving one's digital literacy skills.

Since the VIP targets a global audience, we believe it well fits with the scope of creating a digitally literate community.

The VIP is at the 'Pilot' stage of development as so far we've run 6 cohorts of this internship program as a test run; free of cost to the learners. We've hosted 100+ interns from UK, Pakistan, Oman, Turkey, Nigeria etc. 

This project is still in it's testing phase as in order to turn this into a revenue stream, we've modified our business model. The new model involves a paid internship where we'll partner with companies to sponsor a 3-month internship, at a cost of £1500 per month. In this new model, interns will contribute 40 hours per week for a total of two to three months, out of which at least 32 hours per week will be spent working with their employers and remaining at training sessions. 

Out of £1500 per month paid by employers for each intern, £500 would be the program fees kept by Chipkoo Labs, and the remaining would be provided to intern as a stipend. We have tested this methodology in part by employing some of our graduates from Pakistan as interns for our employers. 

What makes our solution standout is that it's curriculum is an integration of the best global frameworks; NACE, Deep Learning and WEF that's designed and delivered by industry experts themselves. 

Additionally, Chipkoo's approach is innovative because it follows a hybrid model for delivery that combines four elements.

1. Live Interactive Sessions 

A typical Chipkoo live session consists of 15-20 participants, focused on competency and skill building. Some sessions, see our multiple cohorts and community together that allows for greater interactivity and sharing of ideas depending on the topic.

2. Mentors Portfolio

Each cohort has weekly sessions with mentors belonging from different fields of life. Our mentors are accomplished individuals, typically holding a senior to top management position. 

3. Project Partnerships

An integral part of Chipkoo GCVIP are projects. These are awarded by our partner companies and they allow students to get hands on-training on performing tasks required by the respective businesses. Interns are also placed in projects as per their strengths and skillset

4. Job Placement

After graduation, Chipkoo assists its graduates in finding relevant jobs.

In addition to this, our business model is what makes us standout as well i.e. will most other internships asking learners for an upfront payment, we stand out by providing them with adequate corporate experience, an internship and a stipend all under one roof.

• The VIP program has served 100+ learners since its launch back in September 2020. Currently, we've just finished the 6th cohort of this internship program that hosted interns from UK, Oman, Nigeria etc.
• In the next year, we aim to impact lives of 500 learners through the VIP program. For the next five years, our goal is to empower and upskill a pool of 10,000+ learners, operating in at least 20 countries and placing interns round the year. 

We aim to measure progress on our impact goals through three following KPIs

1. Percentage of interns who are able to secure relevant jobs after graduating from VIP within three months
2. Percentage of employers we retain as our internship partners annually
3. Number of families we are able to uplift out of poverty

As of now, 12 people work fulltime on our solution team. Apart from them, we have our mentors who work part-time with us to ensure this programme is delivered efficiently. With the reach of this programme expanding, we're on the lookout for growing our team as well.

Our leadership is a group of industry experts having an experience of 10+ years on average. Based on their vast industry experience of working for some of the best companies across the globe, our mentors aren't only well aware of employer demands but also are up-to date with the evolving corporate trends. Since our team is spread across globally, we're well able to understand the additional struggles that come based on one's race/ethnicity when kickstarting their career, thus we've designed this programme in a way that it caters to the needs of everyone.

Our approach towards building a diverse, equitable and inclusive leadership team is based on the core values of our organization i.e. to value each individual as an independent being and ensure that we foster a sustainable working environment. 

We strongly believe that if such a decorum is maintained within the leadership team themselves, it'll automatically have a trickle down effect on the programme and services we offer.

The challenges offered by Solve cover some of the key areas that we're trying to bring an impact in via the Chipkoo platform. It also provides startups 

Like any other organization that's expanding, we'll need to have new employees onboard to assist the Chipkoo Team in managing and delivering the program efficiently. We'll also need to have more mentors onboard so that our the needs of our interns are well catered to and they have a valuable experience with us. 

Financial support would be needed to manage the costs associated with a growing team, as well as to pay our mentors. In addition to this, we'll be needing support in the Public Relations domain as well, so that not only we're able to expand our reach for this program but also we're able to connect with employers and investors whose support would be required throughout the execution of the program.

Lastly, we'll need support in product distribution as we aim to expand our services beyond UK and thus this support will enable us to do so.

We would like to partner with MIT faculty so that we're able to have mentors onboard who're up to date with the dynamics of the academia and can thus help us collaborate with universities to expand the reach of this program.

We'd also like to partner with fast moving technology companies as well as big tech organizations in order to host our interns and provide them with the corporate exposure they're looking for. 

With primary goal being to empower learners with a skillset that provides them with some economic stability and digital literacy, we've hosted interns from diverse backgrounds i.e. UK, Pakistan, Oman, Nigeria [just to name a few] since our launch back in September 2020. We've had 54:46 gender ratio in almost all of the internship cohorts we've hosted so far and thus, it wouldn't be wrong to say that diversity and inclusivity is an integral part of our program.