#219 – Future Workforce Development

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Welcome to the latest episode of our The Voctech Podcast: learning continued series, supported by the Ufi Voctech Trust.

What’s in this episode?

In this episode, we ask the question, what is the role of social impact investing in workforce development?

The Edtech Podcast is in conversation with an investor and an analyst tracking the future of workforce development markets. It’s a fascinating listen, covering;

• the gig economy
• the problem of regional disparity
• and, the role of technology, including AI in helping us find jobs and thrive once we are in them.

As always, we ask how to keep the human element alive in all of this, too. This is the final recording of the VocTech Podcast for 2020. Enjoy! We look forward to bringing you more in 2021.

Join in and follow the conversation using #VocTechPodcast and #VocTech.

People

Joe Ludlow, Impact Investment Director, Ufi Voctech Trust | Twitter: @joeludlow

Joe is currently Impact Investment Director for Ufi where he leads the trust’s investments in ventures working with technologies for learning and skills development. Joe also leads Ufi’s work investing its core investment assets in line with its mission.

Prior to Ufi, Joe was Managing Partner at Bethnal Green Ventures, an early stage investment fund working with technology companies targeting positive outcomes for people in healthcare, education, environment and civic engagement. Joe has long been active in the UK’s social and impact investment fields, including establishing Nesta’s Impact Investment team, authoring its work on Standards of Evidence in Impact Investing and supporting the establishment of Big Society Capital. Joe began his career with TeachFirst, teaching in a secondary school in east London.

Nick Kind, Senior Director, Tyton Partners | Twitter: @nkind88

Nick Kind has worked in strategy, investment, corporate development and digital product management for over 20 years, with the vast majority of his time spent in the education sector. Until mid-2016, Nick was Head of Business Insights for one of the largest media organisations in the world, the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, where he managed a thought leadership, market intelligence and internal strategy consultancy team for the board. His work in learning has covered all age groups from “Pre-K to grey” and a wide range of geographies and contexts across the world.

Pro bono, Nick also advises the charities Big Change and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and serves on the advisory board of The Institute of Education’s EDUCATE project. He also act as a mentor for NHS Clinical Entrepreneurs and is very proud to have helped the genesis of Big Change’s Reimagining Education Together campaign.

Nick is fascinated by creating better forms of capitalism and investment, which look to the long term, consider all stakeholders, nurture our world, and have measurable social impact. He is particularly interested in solving problems around education, employability and the “skills gap“, which are simultaneously an enormous challenge and a vast opportunity.

Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech

Sophie is the founder of the iTunes new and noteworthy, The Edtech Podcast. The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ for better innovation, through storytelling. The podcast is downloaded from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSW EDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, including to the UCL Knowledge Lab initiative EDUCATE, a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, and previous Edtech50 and Edtech Digest winner.

Sophie is passionate about lifelong and everyday learning. If she’s not interviewing a University Vice-Chancellor, Edtech Investor, School Leader, or StartUp about education innovation, she’s engrossed in Teach Your Monster to Read or wrestling her lockdown baby. A keen cyclist, she has recently relocated to West Devon which she considers the English version of the Pyrenees. She is very lucky to work with a distributed team on The Edtech Podcast.

 Quotes from this episode

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References from this week’s episode

• Ufi Voctech Trust – Website, homepage
• Ufi Voctech – Twitter
• Ufi Voctech Trust – LinkedIn
• Catch up on previous episodes of the VocTech Podcast series here – The Edtech Podcast website link
• VocTech Seed Fund – Website page link (apply 21st January to 11th February 2021)
• Joe Ludlow – LinkedIn
• Joe Ludlow – Twitter
• Ufi Voctech Trust – Twitter
• Nick Kind – LinkedIn
• Nick Kind – Twitter
• Tyton Partners – Twitter
• Teach First – Website
• Big Change – Website
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation – Website
• UCL Institute of Education (IOE) – Twitter
• EDUCATE – Website
• Educate – Twitter
• NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Training Programme – Website link
• Holtzbrinck Publishing Group – Website
• Big Change: Reimagining Education Campaign – Website page link
• Nesta – Twitter
• The Employment Technology Fund – Website
• Ufi Venture Fund – Website page link
• X Prize – Twitter
• Resolution Ventures – Website page link
• The Resolution Foundation – Twitter
• The Workertech Programme at Resolution – Website page link
• Social Impact Bonds – Gov.UK guide link
• UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – Link to more info on UN website
• Lessons from Estonia: why it excels at digital learning during Covid – Guardian Article, October 2020
• prowler.io has relaunched to Secondmind – Website link
• Secondmind – Twitter
• CloudFactory – Twitter
• Daimler – Website
• Daimler and the General Works Council agreed on key points for reducing personnel costs in Germany – Website page link
• Sonic Jobs – Twitter
• Learning and Work Institute – Twitter
• Learning and Work report: Learning through lockdown – Link to report on findings from the 2020 Adult Participation in Learning Survey
• Applied – Twitter
• Gap Square – Twitter
• Temporal – Website
• Profinder – LinkedIn link
• Workfinder – Twitter
• George Floyd – Link to article on Black Lives Matter website 
• Black Lives Matter – Twitter
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Amazon book link
• Not Working: Why We Have to Stop by Josh Cohen – Amazon book link
• An Epidemic Anthology: A Fiction Collection of All Manner of Plagues, Pandemics & Disease, by Edgar Allen Poe, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley and Jack London – Amazon book link

Thank you to the Ufi Voctech Trust

The Voctech Podcast Series is produced by The Edtech Podcast and supported by Ufi Voctech Trust.

Our aim is to help improve vocational skills in the UK’s workforce by funding digital solutions for vocational learning. We only fund activity that is ‘scalable’ through technology, ie projects that use digital methods to widen access to vocational learning. While digital learning solutions are potentially open to all, we are especially keen to assist digital projects which involve post-school age vocational learners that have failed to be engaged by the education system.

Tell us where you are listening in from

We’d love to hear about innovative technology or approaches you are developing or using in adult education. Leave your stories in the comments below. Alternately, record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Finally, you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via twitter @podcastedtech or via The Edtech Podcast Facebook page.