Home-grown digital learning solutions company Kydon Group announces the development of a skills learning and employment readiness platform
-
- Innovative digital platform is part of the Singapore Together Alliances for Action initiative to build a sustainable economy and resilient workforce
-
- The AI, big data-driven platform differentiates from what is currently available as it personalizes training resources and jobs data for the job seeker with employability as the end goal
- Platform combines current industry and recruitment trends with government and private sector insights, to ensure relevant skills training and jobs matching.
Singapore, 14 October 2020 — Kydon Group, Singapore’s leading digital learning solutions provider, is working on developing the country’s first digital, AI, and big data-driven jobs, learning, and skills-matching platform.
The home-grown company provided an update on its Employment Readiness Platform amidst the nation’s highest unemployment rate in a decade, to let Singaporeans know that “help is on the way”, said Kydon Group Founder and CEO David Yeo.
Mr Yeo was referring to Ministry of Manpower data released on 7 October 2020, which reported unemployment reaching a decade-high and economists predicting that the worst is not over.
“We wanted to announce when the platform is 100% ready but given the unemployment numbers, and the fact that we personally know people who have been impacted, we want to tell Singaporeans that we are rallying like-minded partners to expedite a skills learning employability solution to help them qualify for available jobs and adapt to a changing economy,” Mr. Yeo added.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on 7 October 2020, said that while the pandemic is reshaping economies and labor markets globally, job seekers should remain hopeful. “There are new opportunities if we change our minds about what are good jobs, and be prepared to undergo training, be prepared to persevere, and continue to look for good opportunities,” said Mr. Heng.
Mr. Yeo said that Kydon started work on the learning and employment readiness platform after it led a consortium of partners to win the EduTech Alliance challenge to tackle the unemployment issue.
“This initiative will focus on applying technology and data to identify courses that job seekers need to progress towards their targeted job role,” Mr. Yeo added.
Kydon said that the first phase of the employment readiness platform will help people identify their skill sets, employment market needs, and their need to advance or switch careers. Features include:
1. Assessment tools to determine knowledge and skills gaps, considering the user’s background and experience, and career aspirations. Job and industry requirements are derived from real-time market data analysis.
2. Personalized learning journey that helps users chart their knowledge and skills acquisition with their selected end goal in mind. This course map would be based on the skills gap generated from the assessment tools used.
3. Micro-credentials that include curated micro-courses from credible institutions and training providers, to provide flexibility for busy users with specific skills needs. Course repository will aggregate local and global training and learning platform content, including SSG-recognized full-length courses.
Kydon’s Employment Readiness Platform is different from the current Continuing Education and Training (CET) and enterprise learning marketplace. Presently, content is grouped under broad categories on multiple learning platforms, making it hard for learners to identify a starting point to embark on a comprehensive learning journey. Also, many job-matching and workforce analysis platforms work in silos and are behind paywalls.
“The platform is not your usual transactional model that promotes a simplistic, buyer-seller relationship. It turns the skills and jobs landscape into a farm, where buyers and sellers each grow a rich crop for both to harvest,” Kydon’s Mr. Yeo explained.
Kydon Group is leveraging its learning networking disruptor ZilLearn for this initiative. ZilLearn offers powerful content creation tools for traditional and forward-thinking educators and institutions to digitize and scale effectively. Employing targeted learning channels and a mobile-first design, ZilLearn enables users to learn anytime, anywhere.
Currently, the company is in talks with public and private education institutions and enterprises to onboard them as industry partners by the official launch. In the future, companies and organizations can also integrate their existing learning and training content with the platform, to upskill and reskill employees as well as recruit new employees.
Mr. Yeo noted that the design philosophy of the platform is consistent with the consultative spirit of the Singapore Together movement.
“First, the employment readiness platform harnesses the strengths of our partners who are industry experts. Second, we have dialogues and deep-dive sessions with government agencies, private enterprises, and the public, including jobseekers. Third, we engage continually with employers to find out their current and future talent needs,” Mr. Yeo explained. “These insights are fed into the platform to sharpen its usefulness. Thanks to this collaboration, we have been able to make considerable progress in a short period.”
Mr Wee-Tiong Ang, CEO of JobTech, one of the consortium partners, said: “We are excited to contribute to this worthwhile endeavor to help Singapore by leveraging our AI and Big Data capabilities. We generate demand data findings from crawling through more than one billion global job descriptions that are continually refreshed. We support government agencies to assess the jobs market and economy, and we enable companies to evaluate their staff skills profiles to identify training needs.”
About the EduTech Alliance
The Emerging Stronger Taskforce (EST) was set up in May 2020 by the Future Economy Council and is the economic thrust of the broader Singapore Together movement. It was launched by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat in June 2019 to create more opportunities for government agencies to work with Singaporeans to design and implement policies together for a sustainable future.
The Emerging Stronger Taskforce is co-chaired by Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee and the Group CEO of PSA International Tan Chong Meng.
Kydon’s consortium for the EduTech Alliance includes industry experts JobTech, which uses AI and big data analytics to optimize job matching and provide real-time market intelligence; SMU Academy, the professional training arm of the Singapore Management University (SMU), with strengths in the areas of Banking & Finance, HR Management & Leadership, and Information Technology; TaF.tc, Singapore’s first Continuing Education & Training (CET) center for the textile and fashion industry; and SkillsFuture SG (SSG), a national agency that drives and coordinates the implementation of the national SkillsFuture movement, to promote lifelong learning.
Details of the EST can be found here
