Students who lack strong support networks are often left to navigate career opportunities on their own. When students must also learn to structure their course load around volunteering and skill development, identify postsecondary training, certifications, college applications, and financial aid, it can lead to frustration and early burnout.
James McIntosh, who has worked in education policy and philanthropy for 25 years, wanted to change this for students. To do this, he helped create Bridge-it: an AI-enabled EdTech SaaS (Software as a Service) that lets students explore not just career opportunities through both college and non-college pathways, but also understand the skills they might need and the income they can expect to see from these paths.
The Challenges of the Future, Redefined
While many employment opportunities are rapidly evolving, the impact of AI on the economy has yet to be fully recognized. This unknown, according to McIntosh, creates significant anxiety for students who are unsure about which opportunities will exist by the time they enter the workforce.
Most would think that career counselors could mitigate these worries. However, high school guidance counselors are spread thin, tasked with managing an average caseload that exceeds 400 students. As a result, they are unable to offer the quality of guidance necessary and often cannot engage with younger students because of their lack of time.
To solve these problems, Bridge-it compiles the most current and up-to-date information on the shifting nature of employment, thereby detailing where opportunities lie. Alongside this, students can complete 90% of their postsecondary plan independently through the Bridge-it platform, allowing counselors to engage in not just more meaningful ways but also to give more guidance to fine-tune a student’s plan.
Utilizing Past Experiences for Future Opportunities
James McIntosh, whose work in community empowerment became especially apparent during his time with Educate Girls India, focused on a model of organizing communities to take theoretical ownership of their schools. By allowing communities to prioritize their own initiatives, the model helped build sustainable capacity within the community to solve their own problems. Far too often, well-meaning NGOs arrive with a preset agenda for assistance, which can have the opposite effect of empowerment, reinforcing a sense of inadequacy and dependence.
This dynamic also exists with students today. Most platforms that offer postsecondary guidance rely on interest and aptitude assessments that produce results seemingly aligned with the student. Unfortunately, this can send messages to students they might not understand, and by telling students which careers align with their skill sets, students are implicitly being told that other careers are inappropriate for them. This can have a demoralizing effect.
Bridge-it aims to change this. By equipping students with the relevant information needed to make informed decisions, the platform can offer dynamic experiences to help students explore careers, relevant education requirements, and earning potential, as well as the necessary skills, experience, and understanding of the future cost of living based on location and lifestyle. By helping students build a four-year plan and supporting them with resources along the way, Bridge-it is empowering students to pursue their own ambitions.
Empowering Students for the Future with Bridge-it
While employment gaps are rising due to artificial intelligence, and the belief that the return on investment for a college education might be shrinking, employers are increasingly complaining that there are few qualified candidates for careers. This, according to McIntosh, is why platforms like Bridge-it need to exist.
“At no point does a student feel as though they are giving up any control of their future,” James McIntosh shares. “By building a step-by-step roadmap, we create a plan that feels manageable and not overwhelming.”
