1) Talenti ® - Women’s Talent Bank; 2) ZOE™

63% of the largest companies in Poland are managed by 100% men (McKinsey Report). Only 45% of women and as many as 92% of men are convinced that the labour market is friendly and accessible to women (source). Women do not apply for a position until they meet 100% of expectations (source). Companies with gender-diverse teams are 25% more profitable (McKinsey Report). Increasing female labour force participation by 2025 could raise GDP by additional 7% = 1.3 trillion PLN (McKinsey Report). There is a need to equalize opportunities for women in the labor market, regardless of age, education, background. 

Our long-term goal is to create the most recognisable and useful career support tool for women. Effective, mobile, tailored to the needs and stage of the career, supporting precisely, in those areas where it is needed by the user. Available in different languages (PL, ENG for start) and countries and based on the latest technologies, accessible online. 

Access to the community of women who we accompany through months and years of career development gives us the opportunity to uniquely and even more precisely connect female candidates with employers. And thus responding to the needs of employers both in terms of recruitment needs and expanding the talent pool to include women, especially in new technologies. In this way, we can level the playing field for women on the labour market and, at the same time, respond to the needs of the labour market both in Poland and other European countries (and beyond). 

An important sub-brand is ZOE, the AI career assistant implemented at Talenti, which has the potential to become not only a support for female candidates, but also a guide in the world of artificial intelligence. This is the best opportunity given the most recent research on the effects of artificial intelligence, which indicates that women are at greater risk of its effects (McKinsey Global Institute: "Generative AI and the Future of Work in America", July 2023). We can show and teach women how to use artificial intelligence, speaking to those seeking new paths forward.

Already the group of women we reach every month (with inspiration, webinars, tests, platform etc.) is over 15,000. Considering only the Polish market [although we are already finishing the English version of the platform and looking for new markets], given our activities in Poland, where almost 20 million women live, if we constantly reach 1% we will be able to support 200,000 women. We are constantly measuring: 1) quantitative data (numbers of candidates, but also traffic on the platform, etc., number of clients); on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis; 2) qualitative data (eg. the level of satisfaction, the relevance of our solutions to the needs of female candidates and clients (both on the platform, by survey and in interviews). 

From the other perspective we help to build engaged and diverse teams in organizations that value DEI. Our database of unique candidates, and a steadily growing community, let us quickly and efficiently expand the pool of candidates with interesting and proven female candidates ensuring high quality candidates. This shortens the recruitment process, saving the companies time and money. We operate in a variety of industries, specialize in hiring white collar female candidates in new technology, finance, administration, sales and marketing. 

Our team is driven by a mission of diversity and inclusion at every level of the organisation. Our diverse backgrounds and domain specialisations are a perfect match for Talenti's development needs. We understand the needs of women and see opportunities in building an open and female-friendly labour market. 

Agnieszka Czmyr-Kaczanowska - CEO & co-founder of Talenti, co-founder, vice president of Mamo Pracuj Foundation. Responsible for assuring the company's vision and mission, developing a strategic plans, leading and managing (eg. operations, risk, talents), raising capital and securing funding, building and maintaining relationships with partners and clients. Agnieszka has 12 years of experience in building innovative products. For twelve years she has been supporting women in their personal and professional development. She created and developed a social impact organization known nationwide. 

Joanna Gotfryd - Co-Founder of Talenti, Financial and administration Manager and co founder & president of Mamo Pracuj Foundation. In Talenti Joanna is responsible for preparing and managing financial statements, developing financial plans and budgets. Joanna has 12 years of experience in creating, developing and managing impact organization (Mamo Pracuj), ensuring the implementation of the mission and vision, in accordance with procedures, laws and in compliance with the strategy. Works on building the organization's strategy and creating new paths of development, ensure funding.

Tomasz Samul - Partner, Head of Growth - Responsible for sales, growth and strategy. He has 19 years of experience in sales and digital marketing. He gained experience, among others, as a person responsible for marketing campaigns and ticket sales at the largest conference for women in IT in Europe - Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit, as COO of Wolves Summit - the largest conference for startups and investors in CEE, and as co-owner of a performance marketing agency.

Anita Warkiewicz - Head of Tech, As the Talenti Head of Tech, she holds the strategic responsibility of translating the company's vision into tangible products and technological innovations. Her role encompasses guiding the technological roadmap and actively contributing to bringing the company's vision to market. With over a decade of experience in the IT sector, managing multiple teams and projects, she brings a wealth of expertise to her role. Her educational background includes a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's in business.

Paulina Stefaniuk - Community & Communication Manager - responsible for creating and implementing the marketing and communication strategy. She manages the relationship with the candidates on the internal platform and in the communication channels. She holds a master's degree in psychology and has over 4 years of experience in marketing and branding project management. On the communication side, she was responsible for new product launches in Poland and abroad. 

Marta Matylda Kania - AI Specialist. Responsible for the development and coordination of work related to the development of the AI component within Talenti and the search for new technologies for adaptation. Responsible for creating our AI career assistant ZOE. Marta specialize in designing content creation processes in collaboration with artificial intelligence, following the human-in-the-loop approach. 

At this point we are a far-reaching on-line platform that offers the opportunity to access multiple services eg. tips on preparing for a job search, language tests, info about labor market, salary, and through preparation for the recruitment process to job offers. The Talenti database provides candidate with access to job offers from interested employers. The user fills in the recruitment form with our support: describes the career path step by step, telling us about job expectations. Gathering this information allows us to adjust offers according to the candidate's needs in a fast and precise manner. 

The latest tool we introduced on the platform is an AI career assistant - ZOE. ZOE harnesses AI to empower women with personalized career guidance. Through the OpenAI API, it analyzes user data from Talenti, tailoring recommendations to individuals. Users engage via career-related inquiries. The MVP is available for Polish speakers and focuses on ensuring a seamless UX by continuously improving through feedback.

Talenti was established to equalize opportunities for women in the labor market. The work we have been doing has already made an impact, but it is still not enough. Therefore, we are searching for new paths and methods: 1) we focus on empowering women in recruitment processes, we teach what they can do better and differently (also by using new technologies), how they can grow, with the knowledge that they are part of a larger community; 2)  we are breaking down barriers, existing stereotypes and prejudices throughout working closely with employers; both advising and showing other paths to building teams. We have big ambitions.

The grant opportunity is a chance to significantly accelerate the development of Talenti and ZOE and to strengthen our social impact already this year. It's a chance to test our solutions, to take them to another level not possible through bootstrapping or loan financing. It's also a chance to show the world that the solution we're working on is ambitious, but it's what it needs to be to make a difference for women in the professional space. 

We have the most experience in Poland in connecting women with employers. Based on this, we have designed an original career path for female candidates to discover their talents. We created Talenti - a safe platform that connects valuable and open female candidates with employers who are looking for such talents. There is no tool on the market for women that comprehensively supports them in their professional development. Since women, more than men, are at risk of losing their jobs due to the development of artificial intelligence (McKinsey Global Institute: "Generative AI and the Future of Work in America", July 2023), the AI-based tools used by Talenti help them get used to AI and will provide insights for their career development in this direction.

1. By harnessing the latest technologies and tailored approaches, we're crafting the most recognizable and effective career support tool for women. Through our platform, women receive mobile, personalized assistance precisely attuned to their career stage and aspirations.

2. One of our key innovations is ZOE, the AI career assistant embedded within Talenti. Not only does ZOE serve as a dedicated aid for female candidates, but it also serves as a gateway into the realm of artificial intelligence. This is especially crucial considering recent findings highlighting the disproportionate impact of AI on women. Through ZOE, we empower women to navigate and harness the potential of AI, opening doors to new opportunities and paths forward.

3. With a monthly reach exceeding 15,000 women and a focus on constant evaluation, we're poised to support hundreds of thousands more. Our dedication to continuous improvement ensures that we remain at the forefront of women's career support, driving positive change in Poland, across Europe, and beyond.

In 2024, we are focusing on the following areas: 

1) expansion of ZOE (e.g. improving, enhancing, developing; new language versions e.g. application of RAG, better integration of the tool with other tools) 

2) development of marketing activities both in Poland and abroad (new TBC market) including building realities with media, building expertise. Including the use of ZOE as a marketing tool to increase Talenti's popularity; 

3) Further development of the talenti.pl platform: including UX/UI improvements, implementation of necessary patches, development of new functionalities, and key completion of the implementation of the Talenti platform in English;

4) Expansion and revision of the sales strategy and development of sales funnels (new TBC marketplace); 

5) Strengthening the team (also in terms of commitment and competence), continuous development; 

6) Law, especially in the context of the development of AI, data security, cybersecurity are areas on which we will particularly focus this year, in order to better prepare key new implementations; 

7) Continuation of the functions of the Talenti.pl platform.

We believe that the program's resources will help us to speed up our operations, and thus accelerate the implementation and popularization of our solutions. It will help us more quickly implement the activities we have planned and allow us to expand our circle of allies as well. We are also hoping that our participation in the program will help us to raise awareness of the social issue we are addressing and inspire others to take action. Dream outcomes will be: expanding ZOE as a tool, implementing ZOE for the English version,entering selected foreign markets, building Talenti's brand awareness and presence at key events. Smart marketing and PR combined with expansion of ZOE branding as a virtual guide for women to AI tools (ZOE profile on Instagram, valuable content so as to encourage women to develop and use AI). We are also excited about the opportunity to collaborate with other passionate individuals. What we can bring to the program - is passion and help build teams. We are available to dedicate the time and effort necessary to complete the program's requirements.

Working with our social impact investor NESsT, we are measuring the social impact of our activities since the inception of Talenti. We keep a record of all the people who have found a job thanks to our activities, but we also keep track of the number of people who have benefited from coaching, consultations, courses or completed the extensive development path on talenti.pl. We also count the activity of our communities of women we reach. 

We are also looking at other, more automatic methods, but at this point we did not have the resources to expand the system.

Our platform is powered by a combination of cutting-edge technologies that work seamlessly together to deliver a robust and scalable recruitment solution. These technologies include cloud infrastructure, application programming interfaces (APIs), front-end and back-end development, and machine learning. This powerful combination ensures high availability, performance, data security, user-friendliness, efficient data processing, and seamless integration with external systems.

ZOE harnesses AI to empower women with personalized career guidance. Through the OpenAI API, it analyzes user data from Talenti, tailoring recommendations to individuals. Users engage via career-related inquiries. The MVP is available for Polish speakers and focuses on ensuring a seamless UX by continuously improving through feedback. The next priorities are to onboard English speakers and use the newest generation of GPT.

ZOE operates on the Google Cloud, ensuring scalability and reliability; is integrated into the Talenti website powered by WordPress, which facilitates integration for user accessibility; and utilizes Google Sheets for storing data. As ZOE evolves, it aims to enhance inclusivity, continuously refining its capabilities to better serve candidates worldwide by processing also conclusions from conversations. As a socially conscious tool, ZOE strives to bridge gender disparities in career advancement, fostering a more equitable landscape.

Six people are involved in the development of the platform and AI tools. 

We have been working on the development of the platform since Q4 2021. The ZOE tool started to be developed in Q3 2023 and was launched in January 2024. 

Talenti was established precisely to contribute to sustainable social development, in particular to equalize opportunities for women in the labor market, regardless of age, education, background or situation of migrant women as well.  We actively support the achievement of the SDG goals while increasing the social impact of the organizations we work with: gender equality (5), decent work and economic work (8) and reduced inequalities (10). As a small startup of six people, we recognize the importance of fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable work environment where everyone feels valued and respected. We believe that such an environment is not only crucial for employee well-being and morale but also essential for driving innovation and achieving our goals of developing an app that levels the playing field for women in the job market. 

To ensure diversity within our team, we have implemented strategies: Embracing different perspective, providing flexible work arrangements, Promoting open communication, investing in employee development Establishing clear values and mission. 

Talenti is a B2B solution where employers and large companies pay for the talent they acquire. 

UVP: We help to build engaged and diverse teams in organizations that value DEI & not only. Our database of unique candidates, and a steadily growing community, let us quickly and efficiently expand the pool of candidates with interesting and proven female candidates ensuring high quality candidates. This shortens the recruitment process, saving you time and money. We operate in a variety of industries, specialize in hiring white collar female candidates in new technology, finance, administration, sales and marketing. 

As for now we generate revenue through a payment per candidate's profiles and testing other business models. At the moment among clients are companies doing business in Poland. The recruitment market in Poland is divided into several segments, the largest of which is the recruitment segment for Polish employers. This segment accounted for approximately PLN 297 million of the market in 2022. Another large segment is the recruitment segment for foreign employers, which accounted for around PLN 35 million in 2022.

As for now we generate revenue through a payment per candidate's profiles and testing other business models. At the moment among clients are companies doing business in Poland. 

The recruitment market in Poland is divided into several segments, the largest of which is the recruitment segment for Polish employers. This segment accounted for approximately PLN 297 million of the market in 2022. Another large segment is the recruitment segment for foreign employers, which accounted for around PLN 35 million in 2022.

According to the report "HR Services Market 2022" Polish HR Forum, the value of the recruitment market in Poland in 2022 was around PLN 6 billion. This was an increase of 35% compared to the previous year. It is expected that the value of the recruitment market in Poland will continue to grow in the coming years. 

According to the report "Global Recruitment Industry Trends 2023" by Randstad, the value of the recruitment market in Europe in 2022 was around €120 billion. This was an increase of 6.5% compared to the previous year.

In addition, our existing and continually expanding database of female candidates gives us the opportunity to support organisers of events in the STEM fields, as well as start-ups and entrepreneurship, in recruiting women as experts to speak and also to provide greater diversity at the events themselves. 

In doing so, we support the building of the conference programme to ensure that the invitation reaches women. This is an area we will be developing this year.