XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges announced the five finalists of the three-year competition which reimagines the future of work and how workers are educated and trained.

The competition incentivizes teams to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of rapid training and reskilling solutions for individuals most vulnerable to employment loss.

HireMee competed in round two by deploying its solution to quickly reskill under-resourced workers. Judges evaluated all testing data, to move five teams forward as finalists choosing them because of their reduced training time, and higher job placement rate, and retention rate.

HireMee is now spinning off Isotonik Solutions as a US company with Chocko Valliappa, Mr. Tom Dretler and Mr. Shirish Pareek as co-founders.

“We are excited to see how the five finalist teams in this competition have tackled the challenge of closing the skills gaps,” said XPRIZE CEO, Anousheh Ansari. “The trainings offered are empowering workers and increasing accessibility to full-time, living wage jobs; radically changing lives and bringing abundance for all. The finalists are reimagining job training and career development; leveraging AI, VR, and disruptive technologies and their efforts are paramount in demonstrating the value of fast-paced training programs.”

The five finalist teams that exceeded all expectations are Alelo, Los Angeles; Dignified Work, formerly Dignity of Work, Spokane; Team Isotonic, formerly HireMee, Bengaluru; SHIFA360, San Diego; and VITAL, Boston, Massachusetts. A milestone award of $1,500,000 will be shared equally between these teams whose solutions received the highest scores from the Judging Panel for successful implementation of their solution.

Isotonik Solutions, USA as a spun off entity from HireMee will deploy its wide-ranging global experience to build new, replicable pathways to rapidly reskill American workers in the final round of the XPRIZE competition.

According to Chocko Valliappa, Founder of HireMee, “Team HireMee is proud of this prestigious honour earned while deploying our proven strengths in using digital technology on an unmatched scale to enable the future of work. We hope to contribute significantly by solving the critical challenge of Rapid Reskilling. HireMee will continue to provide the technology spine for Team Isotonik, as a continuation of its journey towards enabling jobs to millions around the world.”

“Team Isotonik is excited at the opportunity to optimize our ideas on a much larger scale in Healthcare, Advanced Manufacturing and Administration as we strive to exceed our execution abilities in skill-building,” says Shirish Pareek, Isotonik co-founder based in Maryland, USA.

“As a finalist team, Isotonik is gearing up to deliver superior outcomes by training at least 5,000 individuals in three different occupations in three different industries and placing them into relevant jobs in the coming months,” adds Tom Dretler, Massachusetts, USA based Isotonik co-founder.

“We hoped teams would increase job training by 50 per cent. But so far their solutions have increased training by 87 per cent, with another round of testing to optimize their ideas,” said Dr. Monique Golden, Social Science Lead for XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling.

As a finalist HireMee is challenged to achieve an exponential increase in results by training at least 5,000 individuals in three different occupations in three different industries and placing them into relevant jobs and will test its solution from May to August, with judges set to review the data later this year.

XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is powered by New Profit, a venture philanthropy organization, as part of the Future of Work Grand Challenge which aims to achieve broader systemic change to help prepare 12 million Americans from underinvested communities for workforce success by 2025.

The Grand Challenge is made possible by Strada Education Network, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Comcast NBCUniversal, Goodwill, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Schultz Family Foundation, and many others.

The initiative also brings together a consortium of design and operating partners driving positive change in workforce development including JFF, Accenture, Brandeis University, Education Design Lab, Goodwill Industries International, and Jobcase.