Open Technology and Data to Connect Youth with Work
Tabiya creates open-source software to help tackle youth unemployment. We work with governments and nonprofits to develop solutions solutions for job matching, skills recognition, and career guidance. Our solutions bring to light traditionally unseen skills, making job markets work better for everyone.
The Challenge
Current Tech Solutions to Connect Youth with Work Often Fall Short
Youth unemployment is devastating, especially in low- and middle-income countries. While jobseekers and employers both have strong incentives to find each other, underserved communities often lack the networks and information to access opportunities. Technology can help connect young people with opportunities, but current solutions face fundamental challenges.
Vendor Lock-In
Commercial software and data solutions are prohibitively expensive and create vendor lock-in.
Ignoring Informal and Unpaid Work
Existing tools often reinforce rather than reduce inequities by ignoring skills from informal work and unpaid care work.
Duplication of Efforts
Many organizations build limited solutions independently, leading to fragmentation and duplication of efforts.
Siloed Data
Lack of common standards makes it hard to share data that could inform better policies.
Our Approach
Building Digital Public Infrastructure for Youth Employment
We are a research-driven non-profit organization that creates open-source software, models, and standards to help tackle the global youth employment challenge. Our approach combines academic rigor with practical implementation.
Research-Driven Innovation
Our work originates from extensive research at the University of Oxford on labor markets in low- and middle-income countries. We maintain strong connections with academic research while focusing on developing practical, scalable solutions.
Open and Modular Solutions
We build open-source tools that partners can use as building blocks. This approach reduces duplication of effort and ensures solutions are accessible and adaptable across different contexts.
Inclusive Frameworks
Our solutions are based on frameworks that recognize skills from all forms of work. Our approach particularly values traditionally overlooked skills from informal work and unpaid care work.
Partner-Led Implementation
We serve as a convening and learning platform for our partners. Rather than implementing solutions directly, we enable organizations to build on our tools while maintaining ownership of their programs.
Evidence-Based Impact
We collaborate with leading research institutions to evaluate our work rigorously. This commitment to measuring impact helps us improve our solutions and ensures they create meaningful change.
Our Solutions
Building Blocks for Better Labor Markets
We are developing a suite of interconnected open-source tools to make labor market work better for all. These are our first three components, with more in development. At their foundation is our adaptable taxonomy of jobs and skills, which ensures interoperability and provides guardrails for AI applications.
A flexible, open framework that maps the universe of jobs and skills in low- and middle-income countries. Unlike traditional frameworks, it recognizes skills from informal work and non-traditional pathways. Partners can adapt the taxonomy to their contexts while maintaining compatibility with international standards.
An open-source tool that processes job vacancy data and maps it to our taxonomy. Using natural language processing, it extracts and standardizes information about required skills and experiences, making vacancy data more useful for matching and analysis.
An AI-powered conversational tool that helps jobseekers discover and articulate their skills. Through natural dialogue, Compass guides users to identify abilities gained through all types of work—formal, informal, and unpaid. It creates standardized digital profiles that can connect to opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Tabiya?
Tabiya is a non-profit building open-source digital public goods for the youth employment ecosystem in low- and middle-income countries. We want to create labor markets where all talent can thrive by emphasizing skills over credentials. Tabiya's first set of tools connect demand and supply in the labor market. We want to create labor markets where all talent can thrive by emphasizing skills over credentials. Our solutions bring to light skills from informal and traditionally 'unseen' activities such as care work. Our global team from 10 countries across four continents combines engineering talent, deep academic research, and real-world policy experience in supporting youth-centered NGOs and government agencies.
Why does this matter?
Youth unemployment is a major global challenge. Today, 260 million of the 1.2 billion youth worldwide are not in employment, education, or training, with 2 in 3 being women. A diverse range of public and private organizations supports young people seeking work. While technology could be part of the solution, current tools often fall short, leaving many without options tailored to their specific needs.
What makes Tabiya's approach unique?
Our approach is distinctive in three key ways: (1) We focus on recognizing skills from informal and traditionally 'unseen' activities, such as care work. (2) We develop our solutions as digital public goods, making them freely available and adaptable. (3) We ground our work in rigorous academic research while maintaining practical applicability.
How does Tabiya work with partners?
We work collaboratively with government employment services, NGOs, and job matching platforms. Rather than deploying solutions directly, we act as a convening, incubation, and learning platform. Our partners use our public goods as building blocks to develop their own solutions. We also foster a community of practice dedicated to establishing common data-sharing standards.
What is the 'Unseen Economy' and why does it matter?
The 'Unseen Economy' refers to economic activities that are typically overlooked in traditional frameworks, such as household work, unpaid care work, and informal employment. These activities form important parts of individual livelihoods and contribute significantly to human capital development but are often undervalued because they don't involve direct monetary transactions. By recognizing and validating skills gained through these activities, we can create more inclusive labor markets and better economic opportunities, particularly for women and youth.
How is Tabiya funded?
Tabiya is supported by a combination of philanthropic funding and project-based grants. Our supporters so far include organizations like the Global Development Incubator, Google.org, and the Rockefeller Foundation. We are currently a fiscally-sponsored project of the Global Development Incubator, a 501(c)(3) organization.
Get in Touch with Tabiya
Whether you'd like to learn more about our work, explore partnership opportunities, or support our mission of building digital public infrastructure for youth employment, we would love to hear from you.