Talent technology startup UP School completed its first investment round under the leadership of Arya Women Investment Platform with the participation of Bogazici Ventures and angel investors. Closing the talent and gender gap by training female role models, UP School is an impact initiative established within YGA to create equal opportunities in the field of technology.
Talent technology startup UP School completed its first investment round with Bogazici Ventures, angel investors Melih Odemis and Erdal Durukan under the leadership of Arya Women Investment Platform.
Established as a YGA startup to provide equal opportunities for women in vocational education, UP School not only trains women software developers with the training programs it opened in the field of technology, but also provides a solution to companies’ talent search thanks to its platform that matches the right position with the right candidate.
UP School, which closely monitors the talent gap in the sector and develops programs in line with the needs and trains talent, plans to provide a solution to the talent search of global companies, especially in Europe, by opening trainings in new technology fields with the investment it has received. Unlike local training programs, the programs that offer intensive and practice-oriented professional competency on a global scale aim to create value from the first day of the graduates in the companies they get a job.
UP School has received more than 10 thousand applications to date
The completion rate of the programs is over 90%. Thanks to the programs that offer not only technology but also self-confidence training with community-oriented learning and one-to-one mentoring support, women have the opportunity to develop themselves in effective communication, emotional resilience, time and energy management, group work in a climate of trust, critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Thanks to this program model, it distinguishes itself from other examples in the world. Students also prepare for job interviews with mock interviews with mentors working in technology companies based in Silicon Valley, England, Germany and the Netherlands.
More than 70% of UP School graduates start their technology careers in their field of study.
UP School, which has brought together many companies in the technology, e-commerce, banking, fintech, automotive and retail sectors with the talents they are looking for, also provides training in the fields of Deep Learning and Web3 with the cooperation of Google Developers and Solana Foundation. Two birds with one stone: Closing the talent gap by increasing female employment in technology
To date, he has developed talent in data science, data analysis, machine learning, robotic process automation, mobile and web software development, blockchain software development. In the next period, it will continue to closely monitor the talent gap in the technology sector, both in Turkiye and in Europe, and continue to develop talent in exactly the required field.
The right job, the right education, the right talent
With the investment, the company plans to develop a platform that learns from the results of past programs and makes accurate candidate matching, using data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies on a large scale.
Melike Aydin, Co-Founder of UP School “Women’s right is a human right. No company, sector or country without equality can reach its true potential. In the world, women’s employment in the field of technology is 30%. In Turkiye, it is only 9%. We discover young women with high potential from all corners of Turkiye, provide professional competencies in the field of technology according to the needs of the sector, and increase women’s employment by placing them in jobs.”
UP School Co-Founder Mina Ilkoz Demirtas: “We are faced with two opposing problems: youth unemployment and talent gap. By matching the right job, the right education, and the right talent, we caught a glimmer of hope for a solution. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Labor, the cost of hiring the wrong way reaches 10% of an employer’s annual earnings. UP School performs talent matching for companies by evaluating the performance data, education and internship history, career goals, technology competencies collected about the candidate during the training. We save time for our business partners who want to recruit quickly.”
Source: Egirisim / Translated by Irem Yildiz