AVNI Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd. in association with the Ministry of Youth launched MyFuturelk, an online service that serves as a solution to the unemployment and career training of Sri Lanka’s youths, earlier this month. Released as both a mobile app and web application, MyFuturelk will serve as a centralised platform to assist local youths and startups by gathering, sharing and monitoring the profiles of all youths in Sri Lanka.
AVNI Solutions Managing Director Dr. Roshan Hassim spoke in detail about the app, its development and its future.
Recruitment management systema
Dr. Roshan said that MyFuturelk has been worked on for sometime now, with the beginnings of a web based recruitment management system being proposed by him around 2014. MyFuturelk as we know it was under development since 2017 based on a research study on employment in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Roshan said according to their findings, around 400,000 local and 50,000 foreign job vacancies either went unanswered or were met by workforces in other countries. Dr. Roshan attributed this to the lack of a qualified local workforce with formal training. He said that while many experienced workers lived in the country, with the way employment works now, they would not get those jobs without formal qualifications.
MyFuturelk was developed to adDr.ess this issue and was designed to do so on four fronts, training, recruitment, sports and Small & Medium Enterprises (SME).
Career guidance
When using the MyFuturelk, Dr. Roshan explained that the app would ask the user what they want, whether they be a student, locally employed, employed abroad or an entrepreneur.
Once their profile is collected, the application’s AI identifies, based on their experience and qualifications, whether they are qualified or requires further training. For those seeking training, MyFuturelk will let evaluation centres evaluate users and offer career guidance. It will direct them to the best institute/training centre for them to get the qualifications they need.
For recruitment, users will be connected to local, foreign and government recruiters that have registered with MyFuturelk. The sports component of the platform is meant to create a sports resources inventory, so that athletes, coaches, schools and sports clubs can get the assistance required for a thriving sports career.
MyFuturelk also offers guidance, counselling and support for small businesses. Dr. Roshan hopes for the platform to encourage these businesses to micro export.
As things are, he said that most startups end up failing in the local market and end up not benefiting the local economy.
By encouraging exports from the small scale, he hopes to merge the local market with the foreign market, similar to how businesses in China work with services such as Aliexpress.
Dr. Roshan spoke of how MyFuturelk hopes to expand its registrations by introducing their services to schools and institutions.
As the application can benefit the youth of Sri Lanka, this was the plan early on in development, however, the pandemic situation in the country restricted this move.
They also hope to expand registrations to other nations as well, so as to cultivate stronger and safer worker migrations. More and more jobs are being created as time goes by and MyFuturelk aims to build a skilled local labourforce to meet that demand.