SALT LAKE CITY — The Accelerator at WGU Labs, an affiliate of online, nonprofit Western Governors University (WGU), announced today an investment in, and strategic partnership with, Unmudl, an online Skills-to-Jobs™ Marketplace that provides opportunities for working learners, employers, and community colleges to engage each other in a more efficient and streamlined marketplace to maximize the return on investment for each stakeholder.
Unmudl is a disrupter in the traditional higher education education-to-job marketplace, providing learners with shorter, more flexible, and affordable training with a direct connection to jobs and career advancement. Unmudl’s courses are designed collaboratively by employers and community colleges to streamline the talent development process and ensure that talent supply meets demand for critical roles. Through Unmudl, working learners can also redeem credit for prior learning and work experience to leverage all of their talent assets in order to qualify for better job opportunities.
With 11.4 million job openings and an estimated $50 million projected to be spent by employers in the United States to fill positions, Unmudl aims to solve the problems of today and prepare for the future.
“Unmudl flips the way education works for working learners and employers to create sustainable, equitable, and flexible futures for Americans,” said Unmudl Founder and CEO, Dr. Parminder K. Jassal. “We’re excited to work with WGU Labs because of their expertise, creativity, and relationships with trail blazing employers and community colleges who are poised for the future to scale the Skills-to-Jobs™ Movement.”
WGU Labs has a vested interest in increasing the visibility of Unmudl’s efforts with Amazon to develop an Amazon Unmudl Original designed to support careers in Reliability Maintenance Engineering (RME) that are critical to Amazon’s success, by continuing to build the Skills-to-Jobs™ movement in Colorado and convening key stakeholders within national workforce development conversations.
Unmudl’s solutions are opportunities to drive meaningful change in a national workforce environment that is experiencing a deepening middle skills gap and significant recruiting challenges, particularly within high wage and high demand technical positions that are more challenging to fill for employers.
“For learners and employers, there are shared goals. Learners, especially working learners, are seeking tangible returns on their training that will create faster and more meaningful career progressions; it’s a win-win-win for the employer, college and working learner,” said Jason Levin, executive director of WGU Labs.
The investment in Unmudl marks the 17th EdTech partnership for the Accelerator at WGU Labs since its inception in 2019.
About WGU Labs
WGU Labs is the nonprofit EdTech consulting, incubation, research, and design arm of Western Governors University, where our mission is to identify and support scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges in education today. Learn more about WGU Labs and the Accelerator at https://wgulabs.org/accelerator/. Follow WGU Labs on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Unmudl
Unmudl Skills-to-Jobs™ Marketplace connects working learners and employers via a coast-to-coast network of leading community colleges. Through Unmudl, learners easily access courses and short-term credential programs that lead to jobs and credentials. These jobs pay family-supporting wages and contribute directly to the country's economic growth and recovery. Employers use the Unmudl Marketplace to source highly skilled and diverse talent directly from courses and community colleges. Learn more about Unmudl at unmudl.com.
