MAY THE BEST APP WIN: Last fall the First Lady's Reach Higher Initiative challenged mobile app developers to build a tool to help students navigate education and career opportunities. Today the White House and the Department of Education announced five finalists in the “Career App Challenge,” chosen by a panel of judges with backgrounds in career counseling, workforce development, CTE, educational technology and business scaling. Each finalist will receive $25,000 to continue refining concepts. All five will attend a demo day and compete for $100,000 later this summer.
And the finalists are:
- FuturePlans: an app from Pinellas Education Foundation that assesses student aptitudes and interests to map educational pathways with in-demand career choices
- Hats and Ladders: a game-based app from ThinkZone Games with swipe-to-choose self-assessments, connected activities and mini-challenges
- INFORM Journeys: an interactive learning map from Edmin.com to help students explore different education and career pathways
- MARi: a school and career coach app that brings together labor market data with personalized assessments
- Overgrad: a web platform that combines academic performance information with results from a career interest survey
