Digitalization of the knowledge of the University as a provider of talent

Desired outcome

Universities have a significant amount of information related to the degrees they offer, the schools that provide those degrees and the number of subjects that allow, all together, the creation of those degrees. The descriptions of the subjects allow for the creation of a Knowledge Base (KB) of courses, degrees and schools within a single university. Based on this idea, for a company searching for talent, it would be easy to provide a text where the knowledge searched is explained. The software can extract keywords from the text, query the KB, and decide which are the degrees that fit better the requirements of the company.

On another plane, given that students have already attended courses in those degrees, it would be easy to search for the match between a student (or a number of them) based on the courses attended, and the search for the company. The fit would be even better if the grades obtained by students was introduced.

We want to get an expansion and scaleup Business plan for this idea, which already has a pilot running for the degrees of UPC, the Technical University of Catalunya. We want to obtain a Business Plan, an Understanding of the potential interest of other Universities in this solution, a proposal on the pricing model and the estimation of profitability that we could obtain with the product.

Initial Problem Description

Companies often encounter several challenges when seeking talent from universities. Universities may not always have clear alignments between their curriculum and the rapidly evolving industry needs, causing a mismatch between graduate skills and employer expectations. Furthermore, companies usually have resource constraints, including time and financial investments in recruitment initiatives, it can pose challenges for companies seeking top talent from universities.

Context

The use cases are clear and they fit any University to offer the talent of their students to the needs of companies in the market. This would be a good technology for the following reasons:

1. Companies could be more certain about the degrees and students searched for.
2. Universities could monetize the use of this software when at this moment, they recommend students for free in most cases.
3. Companies looking for students could end up paying less than they do now to talent search companies.
4. Talent search companies could also use this tool to make their search.

Connection to cross-cutting areas

This challenge is directly connected with the digitalization of Universities, and the use of such digitalization for the benefit of all the stakeholders in the talent search, i.e. students, companies and Universities. The related technologies can be used in different Knowledge areas like company search, talent search and, in general, any type of complex search process.

Input

We have developed a pilot for the Technical University of Catalunya, a pilot that allows us to show how, based on a text or a bunch of keywords, we can search for degrees where to find matches between students and companies. UPC is interested in this and we want to make sure that this may be of interest to other universities.

Expectations

The solution the team will deliver may well be a starting pont for the implementation of a business where our company spins out, hiring the students interested, or joining efforts to include them in the enterpreneurial team. We expect the work done up to now, together with the Business Plan designed in this project to become an interesting business case.

Desired Team Profile

We think that there are two profiles that would be interesting for this project:
1. Business. One business school student who knows about the creation of a company.
2. Marketing. Someone who knows how a product, based on the business model and monetization model, can be put in the market and how it can be marketed best.

However, individuals passionate about our project, even if their skills don't precisely align, will also be considered with enthusiasm.

Additional Information

The team at Sparsity is involved in this project. An engineer and two AI students are working in an evolution of a pilot into a product. The MVP is working and it is being used in a restricted mode at UPC, the evolutions of the product are being done and the Business Plan will help to grow the product in the right direction.

The team at Sparsity woul love to collaborate with the challenge students to evolve the ideas and put them in the market.

Related Keywords

• Social and Economics concerns
• Education and Training
• Technology, Society and Employment
• Sustainability
• Digitalization