PRODIGY | Making smart people famous.

PRODIGY | A blockchain-based startup experimenting on bridging the talent gap while simultaneously giving financially incapacitated people a chance at better prospects.

The startup project aims to connect deserving but unfunded people with companies who are willing to sponsor their training so candidates can fill the talent gap worldwide.

PRODIGY screens candidates based on logic, cognitive, and problem solving skills—high scores for which would imply that the individual is highly competent and capable of learning and performing the specific tasks required by the company. Companies are alerted when a user hits their target score, after which they can negotiate the training sponsorship. After the sponsored training, the successful candidate can then proceed to working for the sponsor company.

Here is our pitch deck.

Why I think this is necessary

I believe it is in the best interest of the ENTIRE SPECIES to empower people to become great contributors to society. And I don't believe people should have to pay money they don't even have just so they can contribute to that society. It doesn't make sense for a society to require that individuals bury themselves in debt just so they can be assets to that society.

The burden of self-sustenance should not be shouldered by each individual; it is an effort that must be made easy and must be undertaken collectively if we want to thrive. When geniuses arise and are nurtured, humanity wins. Inversely, any hindrance to personal development is a hindrance to the society as a whole.

The application is a part of an advocacy to enable access to education for people who were not born with money. While it is true that people can work while studying, I believe it would be more optimal for students to focus on their studies without having to worry about food on the table. Smart and driven people should not be studying on an empty stomach.

PRODIGY also aims to help transition the education system into producing more specialists. People can always undertake additional interests should they desire to do so. But while being a jack of all trades has its perks, we are in dire need of advanced specialized skills.

I also believe that the human resource and recruitment industry cannot bridge the talent gap on its own. One has to reach out and meet the other halfway. Moreover, I believe companies have more economic incentive to invest in people if in return, they are getting talent specifically trained for what they need. This cuts off the time and costs wasted on futile, obsolete human resource practices.

Other details:

Score records and user profiles will be blockchain-based, as is the payment system between the companies, the training institution, and candidates in cases where an allowance is provided. As to which blockchain is going to be used, I am still assessing the best option.

I do not believe we need to create a token. As much as that would potentially rake in a lot of money, at the moment, I don't see a long-term use case that other cryptocurrencies cannot already provide. So I think it's just a matter of focusing on the main purpose which is to enable financial inclusion to smart and driven individuals by giving them access to better work opportunities without asking them to pay hefty tuition fees—money they don't even have and would take years to pay off.

There's a little bit more info on our DevPost submission. https://devpost.com/software/prodigy-fh2ekv

We are also looking for potential partnerships such as:

• Research groups that design tests
• Developers
• We're also currently applying for seed funding. I haven’t decided yet whether to go for incubators or individual investors.
• Any other potential partnerships that may benefit the project

Due to my day job, things have been a bit slow. But I am determined to make this happen somehow. I have some other ideas, one of which was posted here prior to this post, but I have a limited capacity at the moment and have to focus on a few things at a time. I'm also interested in building a community for ideation and then having members of that same community start up the projects. There are is an explosion of opportunities at the moment, it's hard to know where to start. Baby steps. :P

For everything else, you can reach out to me especially if you want to get involved somehow. You can comment on here or send me a message over Rocket chat @thescientress , LinkedIn, or any other platform you can find me since I am not always online on Rocket. Just make sure you got the right person. ;)