 Welcome to Work Reimagine, streaming live on Think Tech Hawaii brought to you from Honolulu, Hawaii. To launch the new year, I've renamed the show from Hawaii Reimagine to Work Reimagine to be more aligned with the show's focus on the future of work and workforce innovation. So yes, you are in the right place. And as we're facing massive work disruptions due to automation and the pandemic, our challenge is to create solutions that address the future of work and the demands of a new labor market. In Work Reimagine, I feature innovators and entrepreneurs who are addressing these workforce issues with innovative solutions that will make a positive social impact for people in our communities and economy. I'm Ruby Menon, and I'm your host today. And my guest today is Sean Hinton. He is a CEO of Skyhive, which is an artificial intelligence or AI based platform that matches workers to jobs and identifies the skills workers need to stay marketable. Workers entering the workforce now face an unprecedented and continuous need for reskilling and upskilling as newer capabilities become requirements for the next job promotion or career change. Skyhive's technology reads an individual's work and educational history and translates it into skills. And then it finds the correlations between those skills and the skills extracted from jobs to identify career pathways through learning solutions. And this is all done automatically using millions of real time labor market data points. Skyhive also has a mission that's near and dear to my heart. They're committed to fulfilling their mission to reducing global unemployment and underemployment with a focus on doing social good. So Sean, I'm so happy you're able to join me today. And I'm so excited to learn about you and the amazing work that Skyhive is doing in the workforce innovation space. So welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me in Aloha, Hawaii. Yes, Aloha. And you're actually in Vancouver. We were talking about how you're also looking at mountains and ocean but just a little bit colder over there. So I wanted to start off with learning a little bit more about you and your career pathway and what led you to get into this work with Skyhive. Sure. So I would say that Skyhive is chapter three of my career journey. And so very much consistent with an ever-evolving career pathway. So I started my career in the early 2000s. So I was a labor economist. And so I did private consulting with the government of Canada. And I was part of a program where we rolled out a multi-billion dollar multi-year initiative of the government of Canada called the Sectoral Council Program. What this was was we were looking at Canadian demographics and noting that by 2016 we were going to be experiencing net population decline. And so without the influx of newcomers or immigrants to the country, Canada would begin to suffer net population decline and therefore decline in economic growth. And so we began to formulate policy around looking at the recognition of foreign credentials of newcomers and making it a more fluid process because we were aware of the socioeconomic barriers that existed to newcomers coming to Canada. So for example, if we brought a cardiologist from India, he or she would end up as a mid-level manufacturing manager or something like that. So we were really trying to solve the issue of right leveling out capability and the recognition of credentials. The program then evolved into working with the private sector across Canada, so 55 or 60 different sectors, and linking human resource professionals with training and vocational institutions to talk about the requirements of geographic specific upskilling and re-skilling of learners and workers. And that worked then evolved into a national context where we looked at the development of national occupational classifications or basically the job classifications that we write for new roles and new occupations in the Canadian economy. From there I transitioned into the private sector, and so I started working with the world's largest water park companies. So we did all of the attractions engineering, attractions manufacturing, construction project management for the largest theme park and water park projects around the world. So think Disney, Six Flags, Carnival Cruise Lines. I started my time at that company by building out the markets in EMEA, Europe, the Middle East and Indian Africa. I then transitioned to Shanghai, building out the Asian Pacific markets and then eventually took over as CEO of that company. And so that company had 500 employees across 23 global offices. So my hive gets established in 2016, where I'm in Dubai, and I attend a conference of the young presidents organization. And in the morning a group of Syrian women get on stage. They speak to us about the atrocities of the treatment of women during the Syrian Civil War. When I have a stream of consciousness I think about time in Damascus that I had spent the Syrian capital prior to the Civil War, and you know seeing women and children and families in the squares and restaurants etc people that I had worked with them business with etc. And I came out of that session in Dubai with a new vision that I wanted to take my energy experience and enthusiasm and apply it to solving a world problem to help build a company that can be hugely successful from a traditional profit perspective, but drive true positive social impact in tandem with that growth. And that was really the genesis of Skyhide. I mean that that story is really remarkable because I think you know oftentimes we'll get those types of streams of consciousness and then we'll think about what we've got to do something about it but very few act on it. And so I'm just very curious about what was that journey like for you to go from the stream of consciousness to this you know memory of Damascus and then actually like going forth and creating this company like how what was that like for you. Yeah, I often you know I'm a big believer that the universe conspires right to bring things together when people try to go forth with good intention and so the universe definitely began to conspire I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to do something. I began to think about what my background was in my my passions, and I knew a lot about learning I knew a lot about skills I knew a lot about labor market data. I knew a lot about technology and sort of sophisticated engineering because building attractions that need to keep people safe is actually a very engineering intensive situation and so I started to bring those two pieces together and there were several things that you know we don't have time for on this on this interview but several moments over the next three or four months after that, that really reinforced to me. Yes Sean the universe is tapping you on the shoulder saying, you need to go and do this. And so it just gave me the energy that I needed to keep going at that point. And I think that's something that probably a lot of us who are in the midst of career change could certainly learn a lot about so that's a great story. And let's let's dive into sky high because I really want to unpack a little bit about, you know, what the technology really is all about and we've thrown some terminologies around like AI based reskilling technology. So, how does this actually work I mean in terms of the user experience. What can we unpack this so that we have a better understanding of beyond the terminology what what the technology does and how does it help the job seekers find employers find job seekers. Yeah, absolutely so I began to think about why at that time in 2016 we were blessed with the most advanced computing power we had ever had in the world's history with the lowest cost to access it. Yet if I asked somebody a basic question which is what are your skills. And by skills I mean technical skills soft skills capabilities tools technologies and methodologies. And at that time, even answering that question if I asked you Ruby, tell me all your skills, you'd really have to put your mind together to think about what what that would mean. And when I ask the follow up question, which would be, what are the skills that you've acquired through your work experience life experience and educational experience. And how do we inform the changing nature of work and desired career pathways in other words, all of us have a unique skill DNA that we bring to the world based on those three areas education work experience and life experience. How does that DNA apply to how the world of work is changing and different types of jobs and career pathways. On the workforce side, we've typically seen the lens of the labor market or a workforce through the lens of what we call classical labor analysis, which is job title level and credential level. And so, if we look at any job title in the workforce project manager. This is a job title that's been the same for decades, but the actual requirements to do that job the technical skills the soft skills the tools the technologies the methodologies are constantly changing. And so I began to think about how do I apply advanced technology that I didn't have when I was a labor economist and this all had to be done manually. Every single time I wanted to see the new changes in the labor market. Every single time I wanted to analyze a person or a group of people skills. I had to go through this manual process. And so I invented a methodology called quantum labor analysis, which is the application of artificial intelligence to analyze a workforce at its most granular level. What this means is, I'll keep it sort of high level we have three layers of machines. The first machine is going out and capturing anything to do with labor market supply and demand movements. So, it's capturing job descriptions course outline see these labor market information from governments, but even forward thinking things like patent applications subject matter expertise annual reports and companies. Anything that's helping us understand what what is going on in the in the job market. So the second layer of machines that does all the work of extracting technical skills soft skills tools technologies and methodologies from that larger, more aggregate data set. And then those machines take it and put it into the third machine which is a deep learning technology, a modern AI technology that brings all of that together and says okay. How are jobs changing, how are skills changing, what set of skills relate to what jobs and it starts to look at this data, but this is all done in an automated way. So effectively what we're doing is we're a human optimization technology so we're helping utilize AI to optimize human potential, where I can very quickly see the skills that I have. The skills that I'm missing in relation to any job, and I can see right away the career pathways and the type of training and re skilling I need to go and get in order to better prepare me for the jobs that are emerging. So our clients, we serve companies and communities through large corporations and governments. And so we support on four continents now the rapid re skilling of global 2000 organizations and governments at a communities at a government level. So if we, if I was a job seeker. My understanding is that the enterprise or the government has to purchase the technology and then the job seeker gets to use it or how does it work for the end user like a job seeker do they go to a site like indeed and then they put all their stuff in there and then the AI does its magic and comes out with a skills match or how does that work from the end user standpoint. Yeah, so skyhive was built and designed with the inherent focus on ensuring that we get the entirety of the labor market so what I mean by this is linked in is a good resource for, you know, white collar professionals executives for social networking and doing things like that. But we built our technology to serve low income communities, youth veterans people with learning disabilities etc and so we want to make it very very simple so today, or prior to skyhive. If I needed to find a job, and I would go on to individual job boards, and I would fill out and register my information, and then I would begin to search by, you know, titles of jobs, etc. Then if I needed training, which I would have no idea what skills I have or what skills I don't have for these job vacancies on these job boards, then I would have to go search for training separately. What we've built is called a skill passport, and it can be very analogous to the Expedia for work and jobs and training. And so we want you to go to one place, the technology aggregates all the jobs on all the other job platforms, all the training that's available, and it brings all of that down using the process I mentioned previously. So for a skill passport, all that needs to happen is a job seeker needs to spend five or six minutes filling out and registering for their profile they do that once. They get to go through the process of discovering their skills because the AI is taking their work experience and automatically extracting skills they get to choose what level of skill they have them I beginner intermediate or advanced. So if I was in place then the AI does all the work for you so it goes out and takes that skill set, and it will identify any job that that is a high match to that skill set, and it will also identify the career pathways that are a high match to that skill set If, for example, as a result of COVID I lost my job in tourism and hospitality, and I need to understand how my skills that I've developed which are valuable everybody has valuable skills in their skill DNA. How those skills relate to other types of jobs, for example digital marketing or customer service or other types of jobs. The system is doing that automatically and it's helping me, it's helping me and job seekers find their way to that next job as quickly as possible, using artificial intelligence. The access though to the technology it's how how would let's say if I was a person that lost I was in the hospitality industry lost my job, how would I be able to access the technology does our government have to have access to it or how does somebody like a regular Joshua job seeker, you know right now you can go on the web and you can go on indeed linked in and all of these other job boards but how do you get access to skyhive. Yeah, so our technology is built for what we call enterprise grade rollout so we're not a consumer technology we're not like an app you have on your phone. What we are is a technology where for most people who have lost the job they'll visit some one of their states or local governments websites to to register for you know unemployment insurance or something like this. From there, we're working with the state and local governments to implement skyhive, because what's important is it's not just about the job seeker experience but it's also about the data that can help governments in terms of mobilizing. They can see what's happening in their real time labor market, and they can help mobilize economic development initiatives very rapidly to support that re skilling retraining that needs to happen. In order for those new jobs to, you know, to come into these communities and so. So we're working mainly with governments as it relates to the application this application of our technology. Well, I guess we're going to have to get Hawaii to purchase this technology for the rest of us to use it. I was kind of curious. I know that your company is growing so how is the technology helping you to source out the right candidates for the job openings that you have. So for every single person in our company everybody has a skill passport and everybody's matched with training as they would on on our technology. But we also use our technology to help formulate the right role that we need to hire for and so I think a lot of mistakes that employers make and obviously they don't have they don't have access to the information that we have but they'll utilize a job you know software engineer or transportation manager and not really understand the nuances that are coming with the future of work in terms of functional skills. And so we're able to do proper role what we call role architecture in terms of defining unique jobs that that specify to a function that's required in our company at that time. And then our technology goes out and finds those people right because we're able to access all the candidates in the world that have this skill set. And so we're able to go and find talent without having to post jobs or to you know post on a job order Oh how interesting. Wow. You know it's something that I'm a next HR professional and it was something that I used to grapple with all the time whenever managers would give me these job titles and then I'd have to try and dig into the weeds and finding out you know one project manager like I said, across departments might have different types of skill sets that they need or a different role. And it was something that was very difficult to manage oftentimes because that nuance of the details was never really a part of the lexicon of how people do their whole recruiting process just find me a project manager, you know, but it was so generic that it was trying to find a needle in a haystack so it sounds like this technology is really crack the code on being able to get into the very details of that position. And from you as an employer it sounds like you're also able to do a much better job of architecting the roles for your company so that's that's a huge, huge win. One of the things I wanted to find out from you, especially because you crunch so much data around labor analysis. What skills are you finding are the most in demand. You know what we've got automation nipping at our heels and of course now pandemic. So as humans, what skills are we going to need for the future of work to be to be and stay marketable. This is a very common question as you can imagine that that I get. And so, you know, I think first I'll speak to the misconception. So there's a misconception that everybody needs to go out and take a coding boot camp and become a computer programmer. The reality what's happening is the near term future is going to be what we call low code or no code type technology and if you're familiar for example with wix.com where you can make a website simply by dragging and dropping things. This can be analogous to what we call low code or no code and so a lot of the sort of standard software engineering jobs are going to be going away. So we're going to include data science because we're going to start to see more data science as a service and less of the requirement to have to sort of like custom develop algorithms and things like this and so that's happening over like literally the next call it three to five years. So I see a lot of skills that are going to be required as first of every single person should be focused on the whole notion of lifelong learning. So the, the skills of learning in general, critical thinking communication teamwork. That will be core to any any role moving forward, but I think more specifically, there's also a misconception that the future is nothing but soft skills. That is also completely false. And the example that I give here is when I need somebody to weld something a bridge a hospital and a highway. It's great that they're a team player and it's great that they are a good communicator, but they need the functional skill of welding right. So even if we look for example at robotic surgery, you're still going to require doctors to monitor those those those machines to ensure that they're doing their job properly which will take medical background, coupled with technology background right. So, overall, as we see increases in automation and digital transformation, what where we're going to get zeroed in is on on what we call the cognitive skills design thinking agile thinking strategy. These are all skills that machines will not be easily able to replicate right from machine to replicate something it requires huge amounts of standardized data in order to do that. And in the absence of standardized data. These are skills that are going to be around for a long long time. So, yeah. So one of the things that I've been also seeing in the research is that the days of the specialist are coming to an end, and that it's better for people to have more generalized or generalist skills. Is that something that you're finding to be true as well. I think it goes back to that welding example I think, you know that the data that was collected to make some of the assumptions prior to skyhive and quantum labor analysis. The data was at that classical labor level. Right. And so for example we've done a lot of work with governments in the analysis of quantum computing skills, cybersecurity skills, AI skills. The reason why governments come to us is because that data is not available anywhere else because it's so new that the labor market is only showing clusters of skills that have not yet formed into roles for appropriate role architecture. So, from my perspective, there will still be the nuance of strong technical skills, coupled with that general skill set of, you know, willingness to learn lifelong learning, you know, absolutely that will be important, but the functional technical skills are not going away anytime soon. In certain areas they will, but in the majority of the labor market they will not. I know that one of the things that you talked about was the ability to help the underserved communities with some of this labor market data and helping them to elevate into, you know, better jobs. It, and it seems to me that in order for this technology to have a really good grasp of those skill sets, those workers would need to have some type of a digital profile. But we know that in underserved communities that there might be some pockets of people having them and probably a lot that don't. So what would, how do you, if you're a job seeker in that community that doesn't have a digital profile. So how does that work like, is there a best practice to try to integrate that that information, or is there a best place like should they go to LinkedIn or should you know where should they go to start to put together the digital profile. That's a great question so I think overall there there's, there's, there needs to be an understanding first and foremost that the lower skilled populations will not the problem of re skilling will not be solved by self directed learning, or digital for example if we go into low income communities or we go into reserve, you know communities in Canada we have our northern Canadian, you know reserves that don't have access to huge amounts of technology, do not have a strong level of digital literacy. You know having having online courses and data science that's not going to, it's not going to help them. So these communities require a combination of coaching mentorship career planning, you know, socializing physical, you know, sort of engagement, coupled with enhanced digital literacy and then slowly beginning to, you know, build the skill set and capability around digital literacy. So that will be very important to the future economy don't don't get me wrong, however, I think a lot of the the approach is being oh let's just flip the switch and assume that, you know, low income or frontline workers are going to be able to reskill based on taking courses online it doesn't it doesn't work that way. We've done some work for example with Indigenous communities where participants had come off reserve. They had left their their home. They had ended up in an urban center. They would left school left work. So I had no formal trail of skills. But what happens in a situation like this which would be, you know, the very most disparate end of digital profile is you go through a process of what we call experiential learning assessment. So for a person on reserve, they have cared for the elderly, they've cooked food, maybe they've done music, art, culture, understand things about natural resources etc. Doing the experiential learning assessment and then feeding that into the standard labor market in terms of how does that skill DNA fit what's going on in the training and workspace in the overall labor market is how we begin to solve the issues of recognizing the skills of people without digital profiles. Oh, that is fascinating. Oh my goodness. I'm, I could have another, like three hours of conversation with you. Unfortunately, we've come to the end of our show. And so we're out of time and we'll have to wrap it up. I want to thank you so much. This has just been so enlightening and the technology is really, really fascinating. So I'm hoping that maybe I can have you back so we can dig into it a little bit more. So I want to thank you so much for being here and I'm Ruby Menon and this is work we imagined on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you all for being here and please check back for our next show on Wednesday, January 27 at 3pm, Hawaii time. I'll be talking to Sue Ronnie, the CEO of dollar ride, which is a start of the provides employment opportunities for drivers to deliver alternative transportation options in marginalized communities in New York City. So until next time, be safe and take care of one another.