Increasing Workforce Participation Through Assistive Technology and Embedded Reading Assistance

A significant portion of the U.S. working adult population lack the literacy skills to be successfulin the workplace or to "upskill." Nearly 1/6th (15%) of the U.S. working age adult populationapproximately 34 million adults is unable to read or understand common workplace trainingmaterials.Only 4% of these adults receive the literacy and language instruction they need toconfidently and safely work in an increasingly technical workplace. This project willdemonstrate the technical merit feasibility and value proposition for implementingGogyUp in a workforce development use case to expand workforce participation in ruralcommunities and boost the earnings potential of traditionally "hard to hire"workers.GogyUp's design enables small manufacturers with limited training capacity toquickly convert existing training documents work orders benefits information verificationforms etc. into interactive job aids available on smartphones tablets or the Web.Employerscan then follow each employee's progress through that content to verify understanding identifytraining areas in need of support and lower communication barriers with employees.Employeesmeanwhile gain anonymous reading assistance for words or phrases they don't understand andthe opportunity to demonstrate understanding through no-fail comprehension puzzles. Phase Iwill focus on conducting pilots with two different manufacturers in two different regions. PhaseII will scale the pilots to additional sites and for 12 to 15 months to determine the impact ofimplementing GogyUp within pilot participants.