The Ppl Skills Genome is an AI-enabled, living map of global skills — what they are, where they exist, how they are developed, and how they connect to meaningful opportunities for work and enterprise.
The global workforce is undergoing structural transformation at a pace that outstrips conventional educational and credentialing systems. Advances in artificial intelligence and automation are displacing routine cognitive and manual tasks, compressing career pathways, and creating persistent uncertainty about which skills will retain labor market value over a working lifetime.
The World Economic Forum estimates that over one billion people will need reskilling by 2030 — and that the fastest-growing job categories reward uniquely human capabilities: complex problem-solving, creativity, social intelligence, and entrepreneurial initiative. In many markets, traditional wage employment will simply not exist in sufficient quantity to absorb the youth population entering the workforce. In these contexts, entrepreneurial competencies are not supplementary — they are the primary pathway to economic participation.
Yet despite the scale of this challenge, policymakers, employers, and development finance institutions lack the rigorous, context-specific intelligence needed to justify large-scale investment in skills development as a workforce strategy. Existing data is fragmented, lagging, and rarely locally relevant.
What matters is not only what young people know — but how they think, adapt, and respond to uncertainty. These are precisely the competencies that have long been claimed but rarely measured at global scale.
The Human Genome Project was one of the most ambitious scientific collaborations in history — mapping nature's complete genetic blueprint for humanity and revolutionizing medicine in ways that continue to transform lives today.
More than two decades later, we stand at a similar inflection point — not in biology, but in human capability. What if we could undertake a new, equally bold global collaboration — one that maps the Skills Genome of people all over the world?
That is the ambition of Ppl Skills Genome: a real-time, AI-enabled mapping of the world's skills — continuously updated, globally connected, and openly accessible as a Digital Public Good. No single entity can monopolize or monetize the world's collective skills intelligence. In doing so, Ppl democratizes access to the insights needed to bridge the global opportunity gap.
Because the skills needed for meaningful livelihoods are evolving every day — reshaped by artificial intelligence, climate transitions, demographic shifts, and geopolitical change — the Ppl Skills Genome is a living, open-source digital platform that continuously aggregates and visualizes real-time data across learning and livelihoods pathways.
It leverages AI to connect and make sense of data from hundreds of players across the education-to-employment ecosystem, including:
K–12 systems, universities, community colleges, TVETs, and workforce program implementers including GenU, JA, Harambee, and Generation.
Leading assessment and credential providers such as ETS and Pearson — capturing verified signals of skills attainment.
Job and talent platforms including LinkedIn and Indeed, plus labor market data aggregators such as the Burning Glass Institute.
Youth engagement platforms like Goodwall, microfinance networks like BRAC and Accion, and entrepreneurship ecosystems worldwide.
Enterprise training providers such as Accenture LearnVantage, connecting corporate workforce investment to broader skills intelligence.
Ministries of Education, Skills, and Labor — anchoring the Skills Genome in the policy priorities that shape national opportunity.
Using this data, the Ppl Skills Genome offers a Locally Relevant Global ("Glocal") insights platform that helps governments, funders, and skilling solution providers navigate disruption, expand opportunity, and build resilience for the future of work.
Whether a ministry of labor in Nigeria is designing a national reskilling strategy, a foundation in India is deciding which NGO partners to fund, or an employer in Brazil is trying to understand the pipeline of talent available in their region — the Ppl Skills Genome provides the real-time, hyperlocalized intelligence needed to make better decisions faster.
As a Digital Public Good, the Ppl Skills Genome belongs to everyone — ensuring that the most powerful labor market intelligence in the world is accessible to the communities and institutions that need it most.
We're building partnerships with data providers, governments, and funders. Let's talk.