About fifth9
The covid-19 pandemic has unsettled our lives in an unprecedented way. However, the people most affected during the peak of the pandemic were the daily labourers such as carpenters, plumbers, and electricians – the ones whose livelihood depended on them getting jobs each day. With all regions in some form of a lockdown, it was reported that more than 600,000 workers were unemployed between March and May 2020 in the United Kingdom alone, resulting in the shrinking of the nation’s economy by more than 20%.
To combat this unique situation, the Government of the United Kingdom organized a competition to fast-track the growth of cutting-edge start-ups offering practical solutions that could make a positive impact on society and the economy. For this competition, fifth9 planned to build a Digital Business Skills Collaboration platform or W2B (Work to Business).
What is W2B?
The web application helps match opportunities across the UK to unemployed/ furloughed skilled labourers by assisting them to form businesses by creating teams with complementary skillsets. For instance, in most situations, there are requirements for plumbing, electrical work, or carpentry work independently or in combination with others. Hence, a plumber can register on the W2B platform, form a team or a business with electricians or carpenters already present on the platform, and request the person who posted the job for an opportunity to service their request. Once the owner accepts the request, the workers start the work as a team with labourers possessing complementary skill sets and get paid on a daily/ weekly basis.Why do skilled labourers form groups with other individuals having complementary skillsets? As it is more profitable for the owner to hire several people at once instead of a single skilled worker, they are on the lookout for such businesses who fulfil their needs. For the worker, the probability of getting hired is higher if they form a team, and it translates to more opportunities that can be completed in a shorter duration.
Furthermore, the application has been expanded to cater to unemployed persons of any skillset – even software professionals looking for a job. These individuals may even share their professional digital resumes, such as their LinkedIn profiles, to create a team with complementary skills to fulfil a project requirement.
How Cogniwide helped in this unique initiative
A resource from Cogniwide was shared with fifth9 to develop the application. The technological expertise and experience was the reason they chose a resource from Cogniwide. Despite the pressure to deliver in time for the competition, the application was built robustly to handle a high load without any stress.
There are three entities in the application.
The first is the individual worker who searches for a job and fulfils a requirement criterion. Such as an electrician for electrical work.
The second is the Job owner who posts the requirement on the application.
Individuals can not directly apply for a job – they would have to form a team (or create a business) with one or more persons to complete the task published on the application. This is the third entity – the business that comprises workers.
How does it work?
1. A job owner posts a requirement – such as a house building project, a plumbing requirement, or even a software project.
2. The individual worker analyses the job to see if they can fulfil the job by themselves or if they would require other skilled workers to complete the job.
3. In either case, the individual worker creates a business and requests the owner for the job.
4. The owner can accept or reject the request. If the owner accepts, the worker/s can start the work and receive payment on a daily/ weekly basis.
5. On the other hand, if the job owner rejects the request, the individual/ the group of workers who applied to the job as a business will not be able to participate in any other requirements from the owner.
And as simple as that, job opportunities are created, and employees are hired to provide a much-needed jump-start for the individual to return to the mainstream workforce.
Technology used:
The application has been built by using React, Redux, HTML, CSS, and JS. The solution also uses AI algorithms to identify and satisfy demands, and the decisions are stored irrefutably on the Blockchain.The application has been built by using React, Redux, HTML, CSS, and JS. The solution also uses AI algorithms to identify and satisfy demands, and the decisions are stored irrefutably on the Blockchain.
What it does
As soon as a customer messages over WhatsApp or the chatbot on their website, the AI-Virtual assistant responds with all the products available – such as motor insurance, visitor health insurance, and such. Once the customer responds with the option they want information about, the virtual assistant returns with appropriate responses and even can ask for document uploads wherever necessary. If the customer is content with the answer, the query is closed. However, if the customer inquiry is complex, requiring a human to intervene, then the entire conversation, along with the history of the customer, is handed over to a human agent seamlessly so that the customer faces no delay. Additionally, CogniAssist detects the customers' sentiments and has a reporting function to spot the latest market trends faster than the competition.
The Results
The application has been robustly built to handle 100,000 people at once to ensure no worker misses out on a job opportunity. As of September 2021, the maximum number of people who have been logged in at the same time on the application has come to 3000. This number helps us envisage the number of jobs out there waiting to be snatched up by skilled workers.
Expanding the capabilities of technology
Projects like W2B show precisely how we can use our technical expertise to benefit society. Each new job created on the application means that at least one person gets employed for the day. It means that the worker receives the recognition they deserve. It means that the individual does not have to worry about their next meal. It means that their families can heave a sigh as they have found a source of income in testing times.
We hope that we get many such credible projects approved by the government to benefit their citizens in the future. Such projects provide an opportunity to showcase the best of what technology can do. And we excel at that.
