Tech-focused nonprofit XPRIZE has attempted to address some of the biggest challenges facing our society, from the increasing emissions of carbon dioxide into the environment to rainforest deforestation and more. Now it’s setting its sights on an issue that has rocked our country in recent months: unemployment. But more specifically, it’s looking to address unemployment due to job automation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a cascade of negative economic repercussions, including massive job loss and millions of people filing for unemployment every week for the last 14 weeks. Some experts believe that the fact that we’ve seen continued job loss despite the country slowly reopening could point to a larger workforce shift. Job automation was happening before COVID-19 as tech companies were figuring out ways to save time and money by replacing workers with software and machines, but COVID-19 has given many industries a compelling reason to automate their workforce. As a result, the post-COVID workforce could look very different and the collateral damage could mean countless people will lose their jobs.
This week, XPRIZE launched its $5 million Rapid Reskilling competition, which will crowdsource ideas about how to reinvent the job training process for demographics laid off due to the changing technological climate.
The competition will take place over the next 30 months, with the early registration period open now. At the end of the competition, the winning team will have to use their ideas to train 500 people in 60 days or less at no entry cost. The trainees will then have to be hired for various roles, and keep those jobs for at least 90 days. The team will also have to show how these training practices can be used for another 5,000 individuals across three industries.
XPRIZE also notes that job losses are disproportionally affecting minority groups. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment rates hit 16.8 percent for Black workers, 17.8 percent for Latinx workers, and only 12.4 percent for white workers in May. XPRIZE says that its goal is to have their teams consist of at least 40 percent people of color, in order to reflect the community it hopes to serve.
This competition was created with the sponsorship of New Profit, a philanthropy nonprofit organization. New Profit is also leading a broader Future of Work Grand Challenge initiative, which aims to help train 12 million Americans from disinvested communities by 2025, in order for them to learn skills necessary to thrive in this changing job market. This competition will help New Profit achieve that goal.
“On the 100th day of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we launched one of our most important competitions to date,” XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari said in a statement. “XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling reimagines the entire work process from education to employment, and we’re excited to work with New Profit to help uplift the American labor market and better prepare workers for the digital revolution.”
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