What Was the Problem?
A technology incubator company in Lebanon, Nucleus Ventures, wanted to create a new business model that served young people within the region and wanted Business on the Frontlines to assist in evaluating and executing the mission. Nucleus Ventures tasked our team with evaluating the market for technology, specifically coding, related skills. To put the situation into context, Lebanon is dealing with hyper-inflation, extreme brain-drain, government corruption, regional insecurity, and multiple economic shutdowns due to COVID-19.
Nucleus Ventures believed there was a potential business opportunity where technology companies outline ideal skills needed for a position, fund a coding bootcamp through CSR initiatives, and eventually employ students from the program that have received computer programming education. Nucleus Ventures needed help in identifying potential customers, employees, educational differentiators, and strategic implications of implementing this idea.
What Did We Do?
Our team served with Nucleus Ventures by identifying differentiators for the program, developing a job placement strategy, creating content for soft-skill development, and assisting with the long-term strategy for the program. Our team worked with local, regional, and international partners and companies to understand what educational skills make for the most attractive hire for employers. For employment purposes, we created course content around the hiring process, and also curated existing content to teach each student how to be a problem-solver and growth minded thinker. Our team needed to understand what the demand signals were for our students across the globe, and therefore spent significant time surveying potential employers to determine the best possible program for future employment.
What Was the Turning Point?
The turning point centered around the identification of key areas that the program did not have built into the curriculum. We found areas of opportunity across employment partnerships through Nucleus Ventures, and a critical need for soft-skill training. When we better understood the true problem at hand, we changed our track to more qualitative research in order to ensure that students that completed the program were ready to enter a variety of industries in technology.
What Did We Recommend?
Our team made five recommendations for our partner as they move forward with the program. Our first recommendation was to create a competitive advantage by using their internal resources for project based learning through our partner, Nucleus Ventures. As an incubator that partners with local Universities and Lebanese companies around the world, they can offer internships and projects for the students to work on while going through the program. Our second recommendation was to utilize our created soft skill content and case study problem solving content to ensure students were ready for both the interview process. Our third recommendation was to create a consistent and repeatable program with designated partner and teacher timelines to ensure that the student experience was at a premium. Our fourth recommendation was to work with local, then regional, and then international employment opportunities as our demand signals showed the highest chance of employment, due to internal and external influences, was to stay close to Beirut. Our final recommendation was to create a specific marketing gameplan in order to draw positive attention to the students, Nucleus Ventures, Woz Workforce, and employers.