Skill Finder Case Study: A Conversation with Balance Internet's James Horne

Speakers

• James Horne, CEO, Balance Internet 
• Leandro Pérez, Vice President of Asia Pacific Marketing, Salesforce (interviewer)

In preparation for an AS/COA TechSeries roundtable called "Skilling Latin America’s Workforce and Boosting Employment Opportunities: A Call to Action," Balance Internet's CEO James Horne spoke with Salesforce's Leandro Pérez about how Skill Finder came about, how tech companies worked together to develop content on hard and soft skills, and why the platform was funded by the Australian government. 

In the six videos in this playlist, Horne talks about lessons learned after nine months of the platform, the key challenges for Skill Finder so far, and how a similar platform could be replicated in Latin America. "This requires cooperation from large number of tech companies that potentially and otherwise are competitors. So I think that peace upfront of creating a digital citizenship view and a sense of cooperation is what helped here," Horne explained. He also said starting small, with a simple platform, and expanding in an agile way made the difference for Skill Finder.

This conversation was recorded for AS/COA members as a case study presentation. Launched in October 2020, Skill Finder is a free marketplace offering over 2,200 digital courses in Australia. These training courses are led by the world’s leading technology companies and are available to anyone in Australia who wants to learn a new digital skill. CEO James Horne of Balance Internet, the Melbourne-based tech company that came up with this idea, was interviewed by Leandro Pérez, Vice President of Asia Pacific Marketing at Salesforce.