GoEducate Company Overview
GoEducate’s “true ecosystem” empowers educators and employers to create a pipeline of high-quality talent to fill local and regional workforce needs and build a resilient and agile workforce of the future. The company is addressing the disconnect between job candidates, and the specified training and education needed for employment success through its mission to fundamentally change the way students, adult learners and professionals make education, training and career-focused decisions.
GoEducate is designed from the ground up as a “universal connector” between learners and jobseekers, college and training programs, and jobs and employers. Its core Opportunity Portal product is a sophisticated and highly scalable cloud-based and identity management platform that connects the dots between a) persistent learner profiles, b) college and CTE programs, pathways and courses aligned with c) employer open jobs and labor market jobs data (LMI) based on a unique and powerful skills language and schema common to learner profiles, course lists, and job postings.
Technologically, GoEducate is a fully operational exploratory, enrollment, recruiting and talent pipeline management platform in and of itself with open architecture capabilities that can easily integrate with secondary solutions and multiple data flows via API, LTI or other means. With its unparalleled and synergistic functionalities, GoEducate has successfully deployed an “end-to-end” solution that facilitates advancing from school, to training, to college and to work and, in the other direction from employers into colleges, CTE programs, and into schools.
GoEducate’s patent-pending technology will reshape the future of postsecondary education and its impact on local, regional and national workforces by connecting the dots between students, college programs and employers. Designed and built to serve a broad audience, from K12 and postsecondary students, adult learners, the unemployed and military veterans. GoEducate’s Opportunity Portal provides a powerful set of skills-focused tools and pathways that bridge the many employment gaps that currently exist.
Notably, for employers, the Opportunity Portal offers modernized “Smart Job Boards” that present potential applicants with the information most important by today’s employee and employer standards. More company culture and job role transparency offered through video, and easily recognizable “preferred” and “required” skills through a transformational feature allows applicants to quickly view where their skills are aligned or have gaps in the role requirements. Aspiring students and applicants are then connected directly to learning opportunities to upskill and increase job applicant success.
Regional and State agencies are empowered through GoEducate’s Opportunity Portal Platform and its real-time system data, with a centralized dashboard that tracks student progress across multiple levels and institutions, and economic data that can help determine funding initiatives toward programs showing strong employment track results.
GoEducate’s Opportunity Portal differentiates itself from other single or limited solution providers through its multifaceted platform, connecting the required and necessary resources and components for student-to-workforce success within a genuine end-to-end network technology.
GoEducate’s encompassing solution includes connected data and workflows from career exploration, a robust and real-time education marketplace, career pathways, marketable student profiles, workforce placement, event and outreach management, credential walleting, and it’s own proprietary credential currency and ROI measurement tool. Alternatives to the Opportunity Portal are found in multiple separate SaaS vendors, resulting in uncommunicative information and data, and exponentially higher licensing fees.
Unlike many solutions in education and workforce, the Opportunity Portal has been developed under stringent industrial standards so that it can support learner pathways through the many point solutions across education and employment technologies. This includes student information systems (SIS) enrollment and catalog systems (CMS), learning management systems (LMS), customer relations management (CRM), credential systems such as blockchain and also connect via API, into labor data, O*NET, HR, commercial and social platforms.
The GoEducate platform has been in development for five years, privately financed and now with a completed platform has its first instance launched at Northern New Mexico College in Española, NM, and soon to be releasing its next instance at Odessa College (TX). GoEducate is actively setting up a trial-based California Opportunity Portal contingent on the vast scalability and machine learning capabilities of its open architecture platform.
The initial release of the Opportunity Portal with Northern New Mexico College provides its students with access to eight program pathways within the Business Administration Department including bachelor’s and associate degrees along with marketable certificates. The college’s complete catalogue of programs will soon be added to the marketplace in anticipation of this year’s summer and fall registration and enrollment.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world, has connected twelve opportunities ranging from Accounting and Financial Analyst roles to High School, Undergrad and Post-Bachelor internships to Northern’s Business and Accounting pathway programs.
GoEducate’s platform is highly attractive to all key audiences and stakeholders, including Students and Job seekers, Employers, Education Providers and State Agencies.
Student and job seeker acquisition is being generated through value-based messaging and promotion, both on campus and through digital marketing initiatives. Value propositions for the primary beneficiary group include having equal access to career information, the ability to create and manage a marketable profile, direct engagement with future employers, accurate return on investment indicators for credentials and degrees, and skills-focused assessments and opportunity matching, all increasing one’s probabilities for success through completing a connected program.
Employer Partner attractions to using the platform include meeting students and talent where THEY are via a unique Talent Exchange, targeted search and direct communication with potential workforce. Employers have their own company profile pages, where new opportunities, company culture, media events can be added, and a user-friendly partner portal and dashboard that provide valuable insights on connected job opportunities and pathways. The platform’s employer-focused components were designed and built to quickly establish a more efficient talent pipeline cultivation and procurement process, resulting in lower attrition rates by better-matched candidate placement.
For Education Providers and State Agencies, GoEducate delivers a completely new way to promote programs, increase enrollment and matriculation, and invest more into dual credit opportunities. Through skills-centric curriculum, enhanced student management and course and program publishing, education partners have instant access to an impactful strategy for marketing and building program awareness around skills-based pathways, courses and programs to a broader student audience, including K12, adults and military. On the backend, education partners are provided with full program, course and admin management, as well as in-depth analytics and reporting.
Education and Employer partnerships have been organically generated prior to GoEducate’s official launch of its live portal, however a shift toward lead generated partnerships is anticipated through strategic marketing and product promotion efforts.
Revenue is earned through various Software as a Service, or SaaS, pricing models, across multiple user types, scaling from campuses, employers, regional economic development or state agency and state level portals. Additional revenue is via consulting, service for expanding the use of the platform where outsourced assistance is needed and through local, regional and national marketing and PR from GoEducate’s internal client marketing operation.
GoEducate’s SaaS pricing is determined by three subscription tiers for educator, agency and employer partners; Free, Plus and Premium. With the company’s Opportunity Portal dependent on the volume of courses, programs and connected job opportunities it contains in its open marketplace, having a free, limited offering removes the barriers of entry, enabling any education provider or employers to immediately start using the platform to promote and attract students and job seekers.
Revenue is generated via the company’s Plus and Premium service tiers, differentiated in value from the Free tier through increased publishing permissions, advanced user data, analytics and management controls. GoEducate’s platform will largely remain free for use to students and job seekers.
GoEducate recently achieved a monumental milestone in successfully bringing its product to market, a testament to the depth of research and development required to build and operationalize the technology. The company plans to continue adding and expanding regional and state portals throughout the year, increasing the number of participant education and employer partners and user base.
For GoEducate, progress is measured by several factors including the continued expansion of the breadth of programs, courses and upskilling opportunities in the marketplace; the accuracy in credential and degree demand guidance; the number of active users benefiting from the broad range of tools; the growth in the number of employer partners that value the connection between job requirements, talent pipelines and programs offered at funneling institutions.
Progress is further measured by the company’s endless commitment to providing technology and end-to-end solutions that support learning at and for work, and institutions such as community colleges, continuing education programs, and workforce investment boards that work tirelessly to help marginalized workers gain meaningful employment. GoEducate’s platform reduces the deficit in the number of those unemployed and the available jobs by providing equal employment information and opportunities to ALL learners and job seekers.
When working closely with education partners, and prior to any release of white-labeled Opportunity Portal, objectives and key results are identified by both GoEducate and the institution or entity, outlining the anticipated outcomes from the platform’s deployment. Starting points are established to begin leveraging the technology and accomplishing specific organizational goals. Ultimately, for education providers, progress is judged on the basis of increasing student enrollment and matriculation percentages for institutions and their programs, and the rates at which the credentials and degrees being earned are resulting in employment success.
For students and job seekers, progress is determined by the rates at which programs, courses, and upskilling opportunities are completed, life-long user profiles that enable skills matching and Talent Exchange presence that are being built, and users are securing a desired job or internship.
Employer progress is assessed through improved recruiting efforts, better role placements through the Talent Exchange, decreased attrition and increased collaboration with community, four year colleges, alternative education providers and the skills and curriculum being taught.
Like many new entrants that span across segments, in this case schools, CTE programs, colleges, universities and employers, GoEducate does not have a single “all in one” competitor that connects learners to colleges and to employment or, going the other direction from employers to colleges to learners or job seekers.
GoEducate has many fractional competitors in the sense that they provide a partial solution to one or more parts of the learner-program-employer span. Additionally, many fractional players bill themselves as providing that full ecosystem capability which produces confusion in the market which is a form of competition.
Concerns revolve around the longer sales cycle when dealing with multiple entities on a single cloud solution and that other products may seem to provide the same end-to-end and data capabilities of GoEducate.