Cynthia Jenkins Podcast Transcript
Cynthia Jenkins joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Cynthia Jenkins. Cynthia Jenkins is the Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of Skillionaire Games by skillsgap. Mobile career games that connect our most needed jobs to those who need them most in advanced manufacturing, cyber, technology, life sciences, and healthcare.
Unique to the market, players are fed custom career content and pathways based on their location, preferences, and in game proficiencies. Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, with a West Coast office in Orange County, California, Skills Gap’s mission is to cultivate as many skillionaires as possible by connecting youth, specifically the underserved, to life changing careers through game changing play.
Well, good afternoon, Cynthia. Welcome to the show!
Cynthia Jenkins: Thanks, Brian. Glad to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate you jumping on, making the time, hailing out of California there in Orange County, my old stomping grounds. Love when I get to chat with some folks out there. Just awesome. And Cynthia, we’re going to jump right into your questions, because I want to get your story out to our audience.
And let’s talk a little bit about Skillionaire Games and skillsgap. What inspired you and your team to create Skillionaire Games? And how does it reflect skills gaps mission to bridge the gap between young individuals and careers in advanced manufacturing, cyber technology, life sciences and health care.
Cynthia Jenkins: Brian, I love that you went for, for the jugular there, the big question. So, I’m going to, I’m going to admit. That this was sort of a galvanizing era. I know anytime there’s any sort of innovation or really cool idea, you go for a galvanizing moment with a coconut on your head. This is more of an era, but I’ll give you the abridged version.
So, skillsgap, yes, is our B2B. Company name that was inspired specifically by the skills gap. We have two P’s and R’s, and the skills gap is essentially the talent shortage specifically for skilled based labor. And these are careers that don’t necessarily require a four-year degree. So, so careers in advanced manufacturing, cyber, healthcare, as you’ve just mentioned.
And so, the talent deficit is no joke in the skills gap. It’s about 85 million. In by 2030. However, we have about 65 million high school graduates within the same time frame. So, it’s not a people problem. It’s an awareness problem. And so, in our old lives, my partner and CEO Tina Wilinski, we had a branding and marketing agency that specifically worked on stigma reversal around these careers.
And we worked for states as well as the big companies trying to recruit this talent, this pipeline. And those are the, the Volvos, the BMWs, the Boeings and the needle would move but not to the level that it needed to, to really. You know, close the gap. So the galvanizing moment is coming. As did COVID.
So COVID comes and clearly, as you know, and the world knows, I, I won’t, I won’t be redundant, but the, the virtual our virtual lives just became a lot more robust in terms of engagement, education, et cetera. And so, we were all on our devices and we learned that 97 percent of us have access to a smartphone and 96 percent are gamers.
So, it was a literally a chocolate and peanut butter Reese’s moment where what if we could put those two together and develop a career gaming platform, essentially leveraging the fun and engagement play of gaming. And incorporate career awareness within those games specific to the industry we were supporting. So that’s the genesis of both Skills Gap and Skillionaire Games.
Brian Thomas: Love that. You know, when you’re having fun with learning you go way further, and we all know that. And like I said, that was just an amazing, I guess, recess moment, as you call it. I just love that. But yes, that’s, that’s how we’re going to get people to get interested in. learning this stuff. So, well, you know,
Cynthia Jenkins: Brian, it’s, it’s interesting because when we first started, we thought, okay, we’re going to have to make them, and we did, we made these games super fun. We weren’t, we did not mess around. We went straight to support from, from developers that were involved in scopely and Sega and, you know, the really fun franchise games.
But we’re, our assumption was that we would really have to hide the broccoli you know, with career awareness and some of the, the skills that, that we’d have to put all this fun, fun, fun stuff for, for us to, you know, hide, hide the, the, the learning stuff, so to speak. That wasn’t the case. It was, it’s really interesting this generation, how much they Brave having the agency to navigate their own futures and their own choices.
And so we ended up our games are really, really I would at one time surprising for us, but a really fun hybrid between well, fun. And then, of course, the broccoli, which actually does not have to be broccoli anymore.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you expanding on that a bit. And Cynthia, next question for you is how do you approach game development to ensure Skillionaire games are not only engaging and fun, but also educational and effective in mapping out career pathways for players based on their location, preferences, and in game performance?
Cynthia Jenkins: So, this is, this is actually where we’re, we’re very unique. I had mentioned earlier that, that career gaming is a new category. I don’t think there’s anyone else in line with it specifically with mobile gamification. And so, I had mentioned that we, we enlisted the support of developers on the really, really fun franchise games.
We also in the industries were support. So, we have our cyber I. T. Game. Called cyber watchdog life sciences game called rad lab. We actually went to industry themselves to help inform some of the content and then gamifying that is a science. I mean, there’s a lot of behavioral science about engagement.
And intrinsic rewards, extrinsic rewards. We even had our games are completely free to play always. There’s never upsell for anything, but we actually consulted some casino game developers that really know how to get that stickiness in there. But what makes us really unique, Brian, is As you’re, it’s essentially a virtual apprenticeship.
So you go into a game, you get to choose your avatar. And so, we’re very DEI intentional. So, you can pick an avatar that looks like you or not. And as you try in different accessories, you’re fed different jobs that that might represent and how much you’d get paid and what pathway you might take to get there, whether it’s a high school diploma to your degree for a degree and so on.
And so you go into these environments, you have challenges that are sim-ish. I’m not saying that they’re virtual training, but they are. We are playing within kind of a job fun construct. And as they finish a challenge, the player is given the lexicon of well, what you just did. There is a lab tech and based on their location, they are given.
Where they can take a class to pursue that career or companies around them that are hiring. And so that geo-specificity specifically with the underserved to keep families intact is really important. They don’t have to leave the state or even the region to pursue a lucrative career, but also for states to keep their talent local.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I love the fact that you can be virtual with this, and people can be really virtually anywhere and be able to accomplish this. So, I really love the platform and Cynthia. How do you incorporate feedback from players, educators and industry partners to evolve skill in their games, ensuring they remain relevant and effective in connecting youth and future job opportunities.
Cynthia Jenkins: We do a lot of research and we actually, you know, especially with technology, things change a lot, specifically within these careers we’re promoting. So, we rely a lot on industry to help inform kind of the high hard ones and exactly what they’re looking for and the skills and the jobs as well as from the.
Players which, which is, and can sometimes be brutal, although I, we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve had players say this, this is more fun than tick tock. So, we have a pretty robust discord community, as well as partnerships with afterschool programs like the urban league, where we test all of our games to ensure stickiness and also accuracy.
Again, this is a, a sort of fantastical job construct. So, we’re not being held to. To actual, you know, hyper technical curriculum, so to speak, although we do have badges in the game that industry approves of to at least show proficiencies or vetted interest that yes, this person has demonstrated, you know, some, some applications and interest to go into this field.
So we do it’s a very collaborative process. And it’s, it’s, and it’s something that’s audited basically about twice a year. Thank you.
Brian Thomas: I appreciate that. And I like how the industry has gotten involved a bit to help kind of approve that curriculum so that it does align with their certification or accreditation as these students come out and get into the real world and start applying those skills.
So, I appreciate that. And Cynthia last question of the day as the chief marketing officer and co-founder. What future developments can we expect from Skillionaire Games and skillsgap? Are there new sectors, technologies, educational methodologies you’re exploring to expand your impact on the workforce development landscape?
Cynthia Jenkins: So, the answer is yes. All the above. I would say probably the most relevant as we talk about players being fed, you know, the geo specific information around them. Incorporating it. generative AI into our games to really to kind of ramp up that personalization just to see, you know, if the kids have awareness, if the youth have aware, and we actually go up to 22- and 24-year-olds too, they have awareness of these careers.
That’s great. And that’s, that’s really all we were. Asking or thinking about, but if we were to personalize the journey a little more toward their proficiencies, not just their location, their interests, specific assessments that kind of help them move, move the needle. What we’d like to do is see them actually pursue these careers.
So, to go from awareness to action. So, the incorporation of generative is definitely something you’re probably going to see on our horizon. And yes, and then in terms of different sectors, we have 5 games that are finishing our 5th right now, specifically within advanced manufacturing. This this is ripe for a lot of industries, skilled trades in the construction industry is 1, that’s really, really hot. We are. We’ve only been in business a couple of years. So, we, we have to kind of. Take a breath and catch up a little bit, but this is definitely a cross-sector solution for workforce development.
Brian Thomas: Really love that. Cynthia, I appreciate the fact that you are looking ahead and really keeping up with some of the latest technologies that are enhancing just about every vertical. In industry you can think of at this point obviously generative AI, which you did mention is going to be a huge game changer for what you’re doing. For sure. You just took my headline. For sure. Cynthia, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Cynthia Jenkins: Oh, Brian. Thanks so much. Hope you have a great day.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Cynthia Jenkins Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
