We ended our GitLab Foundation funded project “Bridging skills and Opportunities for Navajo People with AI-enhanced Employment Matching” on the 30th September 2024. We completed our initial user evaluations with very positive feedback (apart from the actual user interface experience). We have updated our website (https://edtechforlearning.org/) and it now includes the final report for our Navajo project. If you want to find out more about that project then use the link: https://edtechforlearning.org/workforce-services-app/. For the next few months we will keep our proof-of-concept Workforce App available at: https://edtechforlearning.app/. Those of you who have tried it know that the user experience needs a lot of work and we have started that reworking. The underlying technology for the app has also gone through several revisions (the ChatGPT API and the Weaviate Vector Database in particular). We hope to make available a new open version early in 2025 and expect the operational version to go live for the Navajo People in March/April 2025.
Our ultimate objective is to place 1,000-1,500 Native American Peoples (building upon our relationship with the Navajo and Blackfeet Tribes) into net-new quality ‘Thriving Wage Jobs’ or better paying jobs in the period 2025-2027, and for this number to increase annually as the range of jobs with validated competency maps and the number of Native American job seekers complete guided upskilling plans increases. Traditional methods for creating job competency maps, job-seeker profiles and learning plans are labor-intensive. Usage of Generative-AI, large job-related data stores and online digital learning materials will accelerate the gathering of data about jobs, job seekers and learning opportunities for job seekers. We will scale and localize job candidate data with novel, AI-driven “interview” tools. We now anticipate a factor of 100 increase in the number of job maps and job seeker profiles created for the Navajo, Blackfeet and other Native American Peoples.