Today the First Lady Michelle Obama announced ThinkZone Games as the grand prize winner in the Reach Higher Career App Challenge! ThinkZone Games will receive $100,000 and additional sponsor prizes valued at $300,000 for their career exploration mobile app Hats & Ladders.

Hats & Ladders engages students from middle to high school with swipe-to-choose self-assessments, connected activities, and mini-challenges. By providing repeat exposure to a broad spectrum of careers, it enables students to draw connections between their personal attributes and multiple pathways to career success.

After their selection as a Challenge finalist, ThinkZone Games and the other 4 finalists participated in an intensive 6-week Virtual Accelerator phase to refine their business model and develop a working prototype. During this phase, they were supported by mentors with expertise in mobile design, business modeling, civic tech, and career counseling. The accelerator phase culminated with Demo Day on July 7 in Washington D.C., where ThinkZone Games presented Hats & Ladders to the Challenge judges and leaders from the private and public sector, including Megan Smith, CTO of the United States, and Eric Waldo, Executive Director of the First Lady’s Reach Higher Initiative. With their prize money, ThinkZone Games will complete development in preparation for a pilot with 50 middle schools in early 2017.

“The Challenge inspired us to create a new app that helps students begin figuring out who they are and what they want to be, in a way that’s connected to their everyday lives and takes advantage of opportunities and information already out there,” said Leah Potter, Director for Instructional Design for ThinkZone Games. “It provided us with just the assistance we needed to strengthen virtually every aspect of Hats & Ladders.”

The team behind Hats & Ladders at Demo Day in Washington, D.C.

The tools that emerged from this Challenge demonstrate the exciting potential for new technologies to help students map pathways to promising careers. All finalists will be invited to the Code for America Summit this November where they will join government innovators, civic-minded technologists, and entrepreneurs with a passion for building 21st century government.

We look forward to following ThinkZone Games and the other Challenge finalists over the next year as they finish developing their technologies.

Congratulations to all!

On July 7th, we welcomed government leaders, Challenge judges, sponsors, mentors, and the five finalists to the White House for the Reach Higher Career App Challenge Demo Day. With a cash prize pool of $225,000 and $300,000 in donated in-kind prizes, the Challenge brings together the top minds in education, business, tech, and design to advance career planning technology.

The day kicked off with an incredible lineup of speakers, who shared insights into how these solutions could transform students’ lives. The speakers included:

• Megan Smith, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
• Kim Ford, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education
• Eric Waldo, Executive Director, First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative
• Albert Palacios, Education Program Specialist, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education

The finalists then presented their refined solutions to the judges, showing how they had progressed during the Virtual Accelerator, and offered a hands-on demonstration of their prototypes.

The presented solutions demonstrated the potential for career planning tools to harness open data, cognitive computing, predictive analytics, and location-based features to transform how students evaluate their strengths and interests, explore college and career options, and ultimately accomplish their goals.

We look forward to announcing the winner of the $100,000+ grand prize soon!

Here are some highlights from the day:

Megan Smith, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, said that “career coaching is connecting students with what they love” and in the process, matching underutilized talent with high-impact, high-demand careers.

The esteemed panel of Challenge judges at Demo Day (left to right): Aarti Dhupelia, VP of Strategic Initiatives, National Louis University; Gale Halsey, CLO and Director, Global Learning and Organization Development, Ford Motor Company; Arrun Kapoor, Managing Director, SJF Ventures; Cory Notestine, Counseling and Postsecondary Coordinator, Colorado Springs School District 11; and Daniel Weitzner, Director, MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative.

Ryan Hoch, Co-Founder & CEO of Overgrad, started the finalist presentations to showcase Overgrad to the judges.

The finalist team from EDmin.com presenting Inform Journeys.

The finalist team from ThinkZone Games presenting Hats & Ladders.

John Carney from MARi walking the judges through their mobile app demo.

The finalist team from the Pinellas Education Foundation presenting Future Plans®.

Please stay tuned for the winner announcement, coming soon!

We are thrilled to announce that two new esteemed judges have joined the Winner Selection Judging Panel for the Reach Higher Career App Challenge. Gale Halsey and Arrun Kapoor will join the panel of judges at Demo Day at the White House in July to evaluate the finalists’ solutions and recommend a grand prize winner. We are honored to have Gale and Arrun bring their extensive experience to the panel. Gale has worked at Ford Motor Company for over 20 years, and oversees learning and development organizations, global leadership develop programs, onboarding, and coaching strategies. Arrun is the managing Director for SJF Ventures’ New York City office and leads the fund’s education and employment tech investments. You can read more about each of our two new judges below.

The five finalists are currently participating in an intensive virtual accelerator phase to prepare for Demo Day, where they will present their refined career planning app concepts and demonstrate their final prototypes to the judges. They are working through a series of modules with leading thinkers from Roadtrip Nation, Civitas Learning, Code Interactive, and IBM Watson to improve their concepts, gain a deep understanding of student and counselor needs, develop scalable prototypes, and create sustainable business models.

We are very excited to hear from the finalists at Demo Day and would like to extend our sincerest thanks to the Winner Selection Judges for lending their time and expertise to the Challenge. Please join us in welcoming Gale and Arrun to the panel:

GALE HALSEY
CLO and Director, Global Learning and Organization Development, Ford Motor Company

Gale is responsible for developing and implementing the vision, strategy and global organization structure for all OD and learning activities across Ford. In her role, she coordinates the activities of the ten functional learning and development organizations, global leadership development programs, onboarding, and coaching strategies. Gale is responsible for the business operations of the Ford Training and Development Center, the Organization Development Institute, L&OD IT platforms and university partnership programs.

ARRUN KAPOOR
Managing Director, SJF Ventures

Arrun is the Managing Director for SJF Ventures’ New York City office and leads the fund’s education and employment tech investments. He has been involved as a Board Director or Observer to Civitas Learning, Raise, Think Through Learning, FieldView Solutions, ServiceChannel, Truist, and Ayla Networks. He heads the NYC EdLinks program and is a member of the Investment Board of the Social Venture Fund for The Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Arrun was most recently with Bain & Company in London and Delhi.

Note that Finalist Selection Judges Cheryl Carrier and Donna Harris have been recused from judging the grand prize winner selection due to conflicts of interest.

Today, the First Lady’s Reach Higher Initiative and the U.S. Department of Education announced five finalists in the Reach Higher Career App Challenge. The Challenge launched last October, calling for new mobile technologies to help students navigate education and career pathways, including career and technical education (CTE).

Each finalist will receive $25,000 and proceed to the Virtual Accelerator phase of the competition to refine their concepts with support from subject matter experts in design, business modeling, civic tech, and career counseling.

“We are incredibly impressed with the caliber and creativity of solutions submitted to the challenge,” said Johan Uvin, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education. “These five solutions hold tremendous promise for engaging our students in planning their pathway to future success.”

Congratulations to the finalists:

Future Plans®, Pinellas Education Foundation

A career discovery app that assesses student aptitudes and interests to map educational pathways with in-demand career choices. Future Plans® guides students through a decision matrix to evaluate career alternatives and offers career preparation tools such as resume building, job interview tips, and job-hunting videos.

Hats & Ladders, ThinkZone Games

A game-based app that supports middle and high school career exploration with swipe-to-choose self-assessments, connected activities, and mini-challenges. Hats & Ladders provides repeat exposure to a broad spectrum of careers and enables students to draw connections between their personal attributes and multiple pathways to career success.

INFORM® Journeys, Edmin.com, Inc

Interactive learning map app created to help students explore life’s possibilities as they navigate through K-12, CTE, college/university, military service, and/or vocational training. Journeys provides students the ability to create personalized roadmaps to explore career opportunities and access curated resources, in addition to offering career interest surveys, self-assessments, and progress reporting.

MARi, MARi LLC

School and career coach app that brings together assessments, capability mapping, and achievement validation, along with personalized career and education opportunities into a comprehensive map of the labor market. MARi is an intelligently connected network that continuously tracks student progress to create a visual gap analysis and alert students of local opportunities.

Overgrad, Overgrad, Inc.

A web platform that leverages community resources, technology, and data to support long-term student outcomes. Overgrad combines academic performance information with results from a career interest survey based on O*NET data to help students select pathways and track their progress toward aspired outcomes.

The finalists were recommended by a panel of judges with expertise in career counseling, workforce development, CTE, educational technology, and business scaling. Judges were recused from scoring and discussing any submissions with which they had a conflict of interest.

We look forward to seeing how the finalists evolve their solutions as they prepare for Demo Day, and compete for the remaining $100,000 and additional sponsor prizes. Stay tuned for the winner announcement this summer.