Awato, a career assessment program founded by two New Ipswich natives, has been awarded a four and a half year $1.1 million contract to provide career assessment for incoming freshman students across the state.
Last year, the state passed SB 276, a bill that requires all incoming high school students to participate in a career assessment, to aid in choosing their classes for the coming four years.
Eric Frauwirt, administrator of the Bureau of Career Development at the state’s Department of Education, said the process is meant to help students identify their strengths, identify potential careers, and plan for them accordingly. However, he said, not every school has a process in place to do career assessment.
That’s where Awato comes in.
Awato is an online platform where students can identify their interests and learn about potential opportunities in their area to pursue them to get to the career they want. The state’s contract with the company allows unlimited log ins from schools across the state for the next five years.
Matt Guruge of New Ipswich, CEO of the company, said he knows very well the feeling of attempting to figure out what you’re meant to do as a young adult. He himself once thought he would be headed to law school, but three years into his undergraduate degree, realized that wasn’t the right path for him. He tried journalism, and that wasn’t a good fit either, he said, and he stumbled into his fourth year of college not knowing what would come after that.
The company, founded four years ago and now run from their Manchester offices, was spurred from Guruge’s idea, and built up with the assistance of Guruge’s childhood friend and fellow New Ipswich native Tyler D. Hurst, and Jermie Clark. Awato takes career assessment a step beyond most of their competitors, Guruge said, by tailoring it to not only the individual person, but what opportunities surround them.
“It came from the idea that there really didn’t seem to be anything new in this field,” Guruge said. “There hadn’t been any innovation. We wanted to bring something new.”
The platform gives students options throughout their high school career, not only within their own high school, but in regional technical centers and nearby apprenticeships or internships, community colleges, technical schools and four-year colleges, Guruge said. Some of that requires additional, manual work by Awato, which both invites local companies to alert them, and reaches out to them individually to determine when they have internships or apprenticeships available.
“It’s a full pathway, from grade nine through post-secondary school,” Frauwirt said. “It allows students more opportunity to have an intelligent conversation around their future, when they know what is available to them.”
“This project will help students on their paths to a bright future by helping them plan their careers, engage in hands-on job experience and reach their goals,” Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said.
The partnership between the state and Awato is set to launch in the 2020 academic year.