MIT Solve

Solution Overview

What is the name of your organization?

Gotara

What is the name of your solution?

STAR Programs

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

A global upskilling platform that delivers proven ROI in 8 weeks - A solution for gender gap in STEM+. TEM+

Film your elevator pitch.

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What specific problem are you solving?

At Gotara, we’re on a mission to “stem” the tide of talented STEM+ women who drift away from careers they once loved - where 40% of women leave the industry within 5-7 years of graduating, costing US employers $9B. We understand because we’ve been in the same sometimes troubled and unwelcoming waters, but Sangeeta, the founder and CEO managed to ride the wave when she nailed 27 patents in her 27+ year STEM career.

Now it’s Sangeeta’s mission to help STEM+ women stay and thrive in their careers and to help employers who share this mission. Our target audience of more than 25 million women are in STEM plus all data-related fields. As a C-suite STEM+ leader, Sangeeta managed global teams of 5,000+, so she knows firsthand what happens when these women leave.

First, there’s the $300,000 financial wallop every time a woman resigns. Then there is the dampening of intellectual curiosity and stifled creativity when teams lose the diverse minds that spark innovation.

What is your solution?

Gotara offers innovative nanolearning (which is a combo of coaching, upskilling and mentoring) in the form Career Sprints of 8 weeks. Individuals and organizations see proven ROI in 8 weeks. Individual grows as a leader creating a pipeline of leaders via skills improvement, immediate application of tools, tips and techniques, and 3-6 months goal achievement. Organizations see increased productivity and innovation. Our customers are seeing up to 94% retention and 44% promotions. 80% of the women who were thinking of leaving stayed after going through Gotara programs.

Part of the STAR program offers 24-7 access to our AI/ML-driven “just-in-time" nano-learning platform. Our has been created for and by women in STEM+—is delivered in bite-size pieces that are relevant, relatable and effective. The program is affordable at the levels women tend to leave and makes a measurable impact within 8 weeks.

Akin to Google search, we provide content related to career development for women in STEM+ in an automated fashion that is tech enabled. However unlike Google that delivers poor results for about 20% of the searches, we use STEM+ advisors as a human backstop delivering close to 100% of the requests from our users.

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

Even though universities and colleges are graduating equal numbers of women in some STEM fields, the numbers still drop in the workforce with 5-7 years. All that investment goes to waste when a STEM woman leaves her STEM role or completely leave the workforce. This is the highest attriting population amongst the professional population.

95% of women leaving the workforce are not leaving for the family or work life balance but because of toxic and inflexible culture. This conclusion was dervied from data collected on Gotara platform with 25K members from 175 countries, which is a behavioral data rather than survey data. Hence more authentic.

Our work will impact 25 million women across the globe and will also impact all businesses's across the globe who employ these women on their top line and bottom line hence impacting the GDP of communities.

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

Why we think Gotara is best positioned to serve this problem world wide:

1. We have over 100 yrs of STEM+ experience in just our leadership team. We have lived the issues and we have risen to c-suites to know how to solve this problem.

2. We have a strong global community of 150+ STEM+ women who provide free advice to 25K STEM women across the globe.

3. We have built an enterprise platform that is ready to scale to millions.

4. We produce clear business and individual ROI within 8 weeks of the career sprint for women.

5. Our content and its use cases are very relevant as it is developed by and for STEM+ women leading to high applicability at work. Hence immediately applicable.

6. We provide confidential space to address their issues by keeping them anonymous.

7. We provide service within 24 hours of request and are available 24 hours - we are there when they need us!

8. We provide holistic solutions by providing nanolearnings Career Sprints to both women and their managers while providing insights to sponsors.

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

Create a more inclusive STEM workplace culture including through improving pay transparency, decreasing bias in hiring and promotion, introducing and upholding healthy behaviors and organizational role models, and/or bolstering wraparound supports for wor

In what city and state is your solution team headquartered?

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model that is rolled out in one or more communities

How many people does your solution currently serve?

We have:

1. B2C side that serves 25K members from 175 countries for free.

2. On B2C side we have 150+ STEM+ expert women advisors on the platform.

3. On B2B side we have total of 25 companies from SMBs to enterprise customers.

4. On B2B side, over 300 participants have graduated from our star programs.

Why are you applying to the Challenge?

This group seems to be a powerful group of people and resources. I would like to tap into the network to reach more customers and members impacting the lives of STEM+ women faster. I would like to reach these 25 million women in a few years not decades. And this could help accelerate that effort.

I would also love the peer networking opportunity. Any additional learning opportunities.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Dr D Sangeeta

How is your Team Lead connected to the community or communities in which your project is based?

I, Sangeeta (Founder and CEO of Gotara) grew up in the STEM fields and have learnt how to navigate the hurdles to reach c-suites.

From college to first job to c-suites, I almost always found myself as the only women in the room. It bothered me. I thought I was an exception and I was different. When I launched Gotara, I learnt from our behavioral data that I was no different than the women who left, they were simply pushed out of the workforce. Many a times, the senior leader has no clue why these women are leaving. This included me. When someone mentions she has a young daughter and she plans to stay home with her. You have no idea she actually got pushed out through many unpleasant 1:1s and small/large meetings.

We are here to catch those moment from happening or course correcting quickly. We are giving an ammunition (early warning) to the employers to save these talented people in the workforce. We empower the women and we upskill the managers in all skills that are taught with the lens of inclusivity.