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TPrize, the open innovation initiative of the Institute for the Future of Education of Tecnologico de Monterrey and the University of the Andes, calls for ventures that offer solutions to educational challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This year, participants must focus on initiatives to reduce the skills gap among young people.
In recognition, the winning ventures will receive two years of personalized accompaniment from mentors at Tecnologico de Monterrey and the University of the Andes. The winners will receive follow-up on the growth of their initiative and support for national and international opportunities that may arise. They also can receive up to USD15,000 if they reach this stage.
This year, the TPrize 2022 Challengeis: How can young people acquire relevant competencies and create their personal and work development plans to access better opportunities to participate in transforming their environments actively?
The registered initiatives must offer solutions that reduce the skills gap among young people. They can also utilize one of the four approaches to the challenge:
- Propose to teachers the tools, methodologies, and best practices for developing skills and competencies in young people.
- Offer employers strategies for skills recognition to facilitate the first experiences and opportunities for new professional hires.
- Provide disadvantaged young people with the tools and applied knowledge to accelerate their insertion into the workforce.
- Implement proposals that reduce the gender gap by training, hiring, and retaining young women.
The TPrize Challenge 2022 launch event featured the presentation of José Escamilla, Associate Director of the Institute for the Future of Education of Tecnologico de Monterrey; Silvia Restrepo, Vice-Rector for Research and Creation at the University of the Andes; Victoria Galán, Head of Research and Analysis at the UNESCO Institute for Higher Education; and Félix López, Director of SEK Lab Edtech Accelerator. The meeting was hosted and moderated by Sabrina Seltzer, Director of Open Innovation and EdTech Entrepreneurship at Tec. The conference announced the call for the 2022 registrations.
Application requirements
Initiatives participating in the challenge must meet the following criteria:
- All entrants worldwide must be over 18, and their venture’s pilot or implementation must be carried out in Latin America or the Caribbean.
- The initiative must demonstrate a functional pilot, i.e., a minimum viable product (MVP), because the challenge solution requires a consolidated project scaled for future ramp-up.
- Social educative ventures can be for-profit or non-profit. They can include an intra-entrepreneurship (internal venture) that is part of an organization.
- It is necessary to fill out the form correctly and explain the business model of the initiative. The TPrize offers workshops for this. The comprehensive questionnaire includes requesting the enterprise’s and members’ names and a description of how it helps its targeted population.
- To apply, each solicitant must provide the link to their pitch (a concise, three-minute presentation of their venture) and a written summary.
Why participate in TPrize 2022?
Some of the TPrize benefits include:
- Ten innovative solutions will receive USD 5,000 for being finalists. Later, five of them will be awarded an additional USD 10,000 to enter the two-year accompanied phase called “TPrize Growth.”
- The winning ventures obtain an initial diagnosis and a mentorship plan from Tecnologico de Monterrey and the University of the Andes.
- Entrepreneurial applicants can attend workshops to learn how to register easily with assistance in completing the registration form as well as understanding the technical aspects and content requirements for the pitch.
- The mentors help the initiative applicants prepare for other awards or contests, validate their products or business models, and assist fund-raising efforts, among additional support.
- Being a TPrize program initiative provides national and international exposure and networking opportunities.
Planning the challenge
TPrize is an open innovation initiative because it includes the perspectives of internationally recognized regional leaders in workshops, where they determine the challenge question that motivates entrepreneurs from Latin America and the world to create impactful solutions. The topic derives from the most common concerns of the experts and the daily challenges they face in the panorama of education. This year’s workshops were in a hybrid format with two virtual and two face-to-face workshops, one in Mexico City and one in Bogotá, Colombia.
The closing of the call is in September, and the finalists will be announced in November. In January, an international jury from the EdTech ecosystem will choose the five winning solutions during the International Congress of Educational Innovation (CIIE) from the presentation of their pitches.
Are you part of a venture that fits the TPrize 2022 challenge? Apply by clicking this link or access more information on the TPrize web Page. The call will remain open until September 22, 2022. For clarifications, frequently asked questions, and contact information, click here. Join the Challenge to find solutions that close the skills gap for young people and promote learning in Latin America and the Caribbean!
Their new report explores trends in nine countries, student competencies needed for five emerging positions, and ten academic disciplines to develop them.
Coursera, the massive open online course provider, released its new report, Campus Skills Report 2022, seeking to close the skills gap by identifying those required in emerging jobs. For the 3.8 million students registered on the platform and 3,700 campus customers, the research determined the steps that higher education institutions worldwide must take to develop skills in students and improve their employability.
Although some educational institutions struggle to keep their curricula up to date, especially data management and technology, the pandemic accelerated the global adoption of technology. According to the report, 85 million jobs will disappear by 2025, while 97 million new ones will be created. Future jobs will focus on uniquely human skills, including cognitive (such as decision-making and creativity) and social and emotional skills (such as collaboration and project management). However, technological skills will continue to be tremendously demanded.
Coursera assures that higher education is more relevant than ever, and improving student employability must be a priority. While jobs today are organized by skills, institutions are arranged by academic disciplines. One of the main reasons for youth unemployment is the disconnect between what students learn and what employers seek. Therefore, an approach that prioritizes skills in the curricula and adapts them to the needs of the labor market is essential.
Global Skills
The report identifies the five emerging jobs most attractive to the students: data scientist, data analyst, software engineer, machine-learning engineer, and marketing specialist.
However, are students prepared with the necessary skills to enter any of these jobs? The analysis reveals the following:
- Students who take the scientist or data analyst paths should improve their data visualization skills, math, probability, and statistics.
- Students studying software engineering exhibit a gap between those who do and do not have the vital competencies for demanded positions. Those deficient or lacking in these skills require more courses in programming languages, data structures and operating systems, and practical coding projects.
- Machine-learning engineering students must focus on probability and statistics to improve their computer programming to obtain the available positions.
- Students who wish to become marketing specialists must have experience in communication and data analysis software for current jobs that combine storytelling and data management.
Trends by Country
In another section of the report, Coursera analyzed students’ competency and course preferences in nine countries through a study of macroeconomic and environmental factors. The analysis showed that students are attracted to technology and data skills, which will help them enter the world of digitalized industries and startups.
For example, in India, students seek digital skills in C programming and cloud computing to prepare for jobs in their country’s expanding digital economy. In Turkey, Coursera users prefer human skills and characteristics like critical thinking and resilience because industry leaders see them as central to its service-driven economy.
Meanwhile, in Colombia, students acquire programming, software, and data analysis competencies as its economy focus its efforts on technological support. Coursera members in Mexico are attracted to business skills, such as organizational development, human resource development, and negotiation, applying them in internships and practical projects relevant to their employment.
For Egyptian students, software architecture, software testing, and software engineering prepare them to create their own companies. Saudi Arabian preferences combine human abilities, such as writing and emotional intelligence, with entrepreneurial skills, such as negotiation and strategy, to leverage opportunities in the private sector.
Different Paths
The research report describes 10 academic disciplines that allow mapping the skills learned on Coursera to the jobs in which the users show interest. These categories provide insights to higher education leaders on which positions to recommend to students to align their preferences and develop competencies for a successful transition. The skills can be classified as fundamental, multidisciplinary, or emerging.
Some of the research findings regarding these disciplines are:
- In all subjects, students pursue technological skills, such as computer programming and statistics, for stability in the technology sector.
- Engineering students, particularly, appreciate the growing need for human skills that complement practical success techniques in the workplace.
- Arts and humanities students who intend to become teachers prioritize communication, research, and writing.
- Individuals enrolled in the biological sciences programs develop data analysis and data management skills to strengthen their research abilities.
- Business students concentrate on mobilizing data with computer programming and machine learning to achieve business goals.
- Students double down on computer programming and cloud computing skills in computer science.
- Some users in education training want jobs outside of teaching as data scientists and entrepreneurs; they acquire statistical programming and machine learning skills.
- “Data scientist” is a preferred job for health sciences students; they study data analysis, data management, and general statistics.
The platform provides this report motivated by the notion that online learning presents higher education with great opportunities to incorporate these skills and courses into its programs. Coursera believes that including these competencies and aligning them to today’s labor markets will allow students to create versatile portfolios with expanded interests and job preparation.
Translation 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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