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As the skills required in the labor market transform, people must develop various skills for competitive profiles that meet demand. According to statistics from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO), 93% of the workforce is currently active in the labor market. However, 50% of these people have informal jobs, 40% receive a wage below the legal minimum, and 1 in 5 experience poverty.
The open innovation initiative TecPrize (formerly TPrize) has a renewed identity that seeks to promote educational innovation further in the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Through this call, they offer an opportunity for entrepreneurs committed to education to apply for high-impact solutions. TecPrize is an effort of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnólogico de Monterrey that uses Collective Intelligence to design and launch challenges to resolve and respond to latent educational obstacles.
For this year’s edition, it was considered essential to invest in people’s capabilities and anticipate their present and future needs, so the call focused on solving the following challenge:
How can adults acquire skills and create their personal and work development plans to access better opportunities and actively participate in transforming their communities?
The call was open from August 21st to October 5th, 2023. Analyzing 130 applications from 17 countries, a jury of experts from different organizations selected ten finalists for the TecPrize 2023 Challenge. Discover the initiatives below.
Ten finalists of the TecPrize 2023 Challenge
- NeuralWorks | Néstor Aldrete Ochoa (México)
- hackÜ | Guillermo Jaime (Colombia)
- HolaSimon | Matthieu Dahirel (México)
- School16 Inc. | Sergei Revzin (México)
- Califica | Arturo Barrera (Perú)
- Studially | Jesica Leticia Gonzalez Robles (México)
- Excuela | Gonzalo Yrigoyen (Perú)
- NETZUN | Miguel Romero (Perú)
- Elevate Digital | Kevin Dubon (Honduras)
- EKI | Andrés Rubiano (Colombia)
Get to know the finalist projects
NeuralWorks
Mexico Signa Play is a mobile application that makes it easy to learn the official sign language of different countries. It has a personalized and adaptable approach that adjusts to the individual needs of users, who can assess their level of knowledge and set learning objectives. The app creates a curriculum with progressive lessons and uses interactive videos, animations, and practical exercises to facilitate user understanding. The visual content incorporates avatars of highly trained deaf instructors and native sign language speakers. Signa Play even uses gesture recognition technology for real-time intelligent feedback. Likewise, users can join thematic groups, participate in discussions, and improve their communication skills in a safe and collaborative environment.HackÜ
Colombia This platform aims to support various organizations by providing a continuous learning experience for their “deskless” employees, clients, and others. They deliver gamified microlearning content through instant messaging such as WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, or email so people enjoy an easy-to-follow learning experience anytime, anywhere. The solution uses artificial intelligence and real trainers who motivate users, employs questionnaires to reinforce content retention, offers certificates as evidence of the learning path, and provides a corporate dashboard that shows progress and results.HolaSimon
Mexico The HolaSimon solution educates micro businesses to increase their competitiveness as retailers, producers, customers, and suppliers through a micro-learning platform. Its e-learning model offers training for all strategic business areas and key partners: commercial, operational, and production. With this tool, those who use it will be able to reduce onboarding costs, convert their allies into experts in the company’s products, have access to a dashboard to measure results, and finally, optimize their processes and reduce the customer cancellation rates of their allies.School16
Mexico School16 has a career discovery and business certification program where technology professionals teach adult students. Through an interactive learning environment, students gain project-based skills to enter the tech/startup industry in the most sought-after non-coding positions. The online program consists of 16 part-time, flexible, and accessible weeks, regardless of the student’s financial situation. Some mentors come from companies like Google, Microsoft, Shopify, and other fast-growing startups.Califica
Peru With this platform, teachers’ time to create educational material can be optimized. Teachers can create lists from the comfort of their mobile devices or computers, contributing to productivity with Artificial Intelligence (AI) resources. The educational material powered by AI is adapted to the Peruvian curricular model so that they can produce concept maps, rubrics, and checklists, among other tools. Teachers use Califica to plan the school year efficiently, record student grades, and build bimonthly or quarterly reports. Thus, administrative tasks are simplified to allow teachers to focus on the main aspects of quality in teaching.Studially
Mexico This application provides a holistic approach to student development to boost their academic, personal, and professional journeys. To do so, they focus on various aspects such as time management and commitments, consistent personal growth habits, financial responsibility with goals at an early age, mental health resources, student scholarships, and career counseling.Excuela
Peru This EdTech (educational technology) company with social impact has been in charge of developing a mobile learning system aimed at front-line staff in organizations and people at the base of the social pyramid (vulnerable populations). Learning courses consider the context and limitations of their users. The content is delivered through questions and micro-learning capsules available on low to mid-range mobile phones with minimal memory and low data consumption, even without internet access. The company intends to create specific learning purposes, continuous interaction, and dynamics that foster the participants’ sense of belonging within a group. The data supports reports for the users and their organizations.NETZUN
Peru NETZUN is an online learning platform with more than 650 courses available and more than 50 specializations through three to 15 courses with joint certifications with different universities. It is the only platform focused on gamifying the experience, with a ranking where users compete weekly for prizes (products, courses, discounts, or digital medals). In addition, they have nano videos of less than a minute, which entertainingly provide educational content.Elevate Digital
Honduras Elevate is an online productivity, technology, and business training platform to accelerate job placement. The first step in the student success process is evaluating the job seeker’s capabilities. Afterward, the student trains for a few weeks in a program to develop skills requested by contracting companies. Upon obtaining the job, the graduate joins a continuing education program lasting four to six months to connect to a better job.EKI
Colombia This EdTech generates educational solutions for the rural sector and increases productivity, competitiveness, and modernization of these communities through microcapsules of educational content. The material addresses soft, technical, and digital skills to meet companies’ needs; it is disseminated through WhatsApp. Experts in different topics structure its courses to create educational communities with inclusive resources for people in more remote populations with different ethnicities or disabilities. Learning routes are designed for particular interests shared via WhatsApp; sending content and monitoring and measuring the courses also use WhatsApp.
Each solution met the requirements of using innovative technologies to access higher education or lifelong learning, enabling the recognition of formally and informally acquired competencies and providing educational tools, knowledge, and support to adults in vulnerable contexts. Furthermore, all of them impact the Sustainable Development Goals established by the UN concerning caring for the environment, the gender gap, quality jobs, and a decent life.
Some of the benefits that participants had within the program included the possibility of winning prizes for first place (30 thousand dollars), second place (20 thousand dollars), or third place (10 thousand dollars)—in addition to being part of an intensive impact measurement course, having a stand within the IFE EdTech Summit 2024 (at the IFE Conference), connecting with leading experts in the EdTech ecosystem, and enjoying technological consulting from Google.
The Grand Finale of the TecPrize 2023 Challenge will take place on January 24th, 2024, during the IFE Conference 2024, an international space for educational innovation that promotes the future of education. For more information about the finalists and the TecPrize challenge, visit: https://tecprize.tec.mx/es
Innovate, impact, inspire!
Translated by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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