2019 has been an exciting year for Skilio as we mark the end of almost 12 months of bootstrapping, in bringing Skilio’s vision to reality. When we first started in January, a lot of what we had were just ideas on how to improve this current education system by measuring soft skills development. As various stakeholders, especially employers, start to demand a healthy blend of soft skills and hard skills in their employees, we were confident that this is a huge problem to solve.
However, several unfavourable factors posed as huge obstacles to this problem. How do we quantify something intangible like leadership or teamwork? How do we change the long-standing traditional beliefs that academic excellence and hard skills are the only indicators of success? Attempting to measure and track soft skills seemed to be an insurmountable task for budding entrepreneurs like us.
There were no pre-existing models which we could base this product off, since there wasn’t any commercially available product we know of that could track soft skill development.
A lot of our early days were spent researching and validating what the market needs. Drawing upon psychological concepts and solutions from other industries, we came out with our very first iteration of our MVP. Along the way, we had to make huge pivots to remove certain features that we thought were crucial, but turned out to be more of a vitamin than a cure. Our initial solution raised many eyebrows and invited rejections from many investors and grant committees. Yet, we kept the unwavering faith to make a difference in the education space, by finding a way to measure soft skill development.
Many iterations later, we are now piloting Skilio in several local schools and also had our first paying client, Junior Achievement Singapore. Skilio is now being beta tested and we hope to fully launch Skilio in January 2020.
Technology itself is nothing but a tool to assist the education process. We strongly believe that it lies in the hands of educators to drive learners’ growth. Hence, we are extremely thankful for the many innovative educators that we have met, who were willing to take a chance on Skilio.
As we move on to the new decade, we would like to issue a rallying call to all educators and stakeholders who have a vested interest in soft skill development to join us on this journey.
THE NEED FOR A NEW EDTECH CATEGORY
With the proliferation of technology in education, we are seeing many companies offering software or hardware solutions to complement the entire education process.
In terms of the learning process (delivery of knowledge and skillsets for assessment), the majority of today’s EdTech companies have been heavily focused on facilitating the acquisition of hard skills. While there has been a small number of companies trying to work on soft skills, the market is fragmented. More often than not, assessment tools for personality traits through the use of games or life-like scenarios, are not learners’ centric (For example, these tools are being used to identify prospective hires instead of aiding learners’ development).
Skillsets required in the future will be drastically different from now. With artificial intelligence, jobs grounded in hard skills can easily be automated. Soft skills like leadership, teamwork enable humans to be relevant in the future workforce. In fact, 92% of HR managers surveyed by LinkedIn, reported that soft skills are as important or more important than hard skills when it comes down to hiring. Current efforts at addressing the soft skills gap in the education system are mainly through training programmes, project-based learning or service learning etc. Many of them are once-off and do not provide an effective way to track the development of soft skills across these activities.
This calls for a new kind of solution that empowers learners or organisations to track the development of soft skills across the various experiences learners go through. We would like to name this the “Soft skill Measurement & Analytics” category. With a tool that is capable of measuring and analysing learners’ soft skill competencies over different experiences (eg project work, training programmes), this will enable learners to gain awareness and take ownership of their personal soft skill development.
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION
We envision a world where individuals are celebrated for their uniqueness and success is not just measured by someone’s abilities to do well academically. Through measuring learners’ soft skills development in the various experiences they take part in, we equip learners with future-ready skills and encourage a paradigm shift away from academic grades.
Our vision can never be achieved alone. As the famous saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Likewise, we would need all stakeholders from educators, learners and organizations who see value in soft skill development to join us on this journey. In the year ahead, we want to scale up our impact to reach more students. If you or your organization can be part of this journey, please reach out to us.
Together we can do so much more!
Here’s to a great 2020!
