To say that 2019 was a year that replaced Noah Scheffer’s life is an understatement. That year, the Brazilian technologist had been affected by transphobic attitudes in the environment of his paintings due to his own transition journey, which had led him to a near-death experience. Little did I know that this trajectory would translate into EducaTRANSforma, an edtech aimed at converting realities through education and connecting the transgender population to the generation market.
Access to formal job opportunities for other transgender people is a major challenge in Brazil. According to Brazil’s National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (ANTRA), only 4% are hired through companies and many engage in prostitution to survive. In addition, when it comes to starting a business, especially in the technological field, its presence is minimal: only 0. 1% of Brazil’s 13,000 startups are led by transgender women or men, according to the knowledge of the Brazilian Association of Startups (ABStartups).
The purpose of EducaTRANSforma is to replace this truth by offering other trans people with a career path in technology, as well as the resources they want to exercise in the first place. Participants in edtech courses in spaces ranging from coding to comfortable skills also receive faceted support. ranging from access to computers to allowances for food and health care for their transition. The company practiced more than a dozen other people after starting operations in 2019 and aims to succeed in another 10,000 people through 2023.
“I never imagined I would start a task like this — it was something that came from the heart,” Noah told Forbes. The spark that led to what would become edtech was a post by a transgender boy on Facebook, where he asked for a female outfit for an interview for a task he desperately needed because he had been unemployed for 3 years. “I was surprised by this scenario and doing anything. “
Scheffel then tapped into the network of contacts he had created over the years to get the task off the ground while working full-time as a manager at a tech company in Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil. Technology decision makers, and I’m going to ask for financial support. The initial vision was largely based on my own experience and the understanding that there is no way to expand the generation without a varied group of people,” he noted.
“Diversity has been a vital feature of the groups I’ve created over the years as a manager: I occasionally hired [people] without enjoying it at all, even if I got into trouble with senior management. Fast forward to 2022, those other people are all the most sensible artists in their spaces of expertise within technology,” Scheffel noted.
While striving to increase the presence of other trans people in technology, the transphobia Scheffel faced in paintings led him to abandon his task to adopt EducaTRANSforma altogether. By then, in August 2019, he had gathered enough to continue with the task for a year, with educational sessions at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, first for another 16 people. Beyond coding lessons, the one-year education also included social-emotional education and mental support.
IMPROVE BUSINESS
At the same time as the educational sessions progressed, Scheffel introduced another type of corporate application. By showing up under a different call than his business contacts knew him, the founder noticed that the market was not in a position for trans other people in the workplace. “People within organizations would ask me, ‘What is a transgender person?’So I started helping them and offering them data in terms of documentation, physical care benefits, etc. Other people go through what I went through in the past,” he said.
EducaTRANSforma began generating interest with requests to expand to other Brazilian states. “I don’t forget to think it would never happen; it was already complicated to get things going with the initial success we had, let alone expand to other places,” Scheffel said. However, Covid-19 has accelerated those plans. The procedure was about overcoming the technological barrier since education had to move online and be asynchronous, given the lack of a structured regime of student participation. It was also about understanding how beyond professionals, such as psychologists, it would be done remotely.
Under the new format, Scheffel will shorten the course duration to six months, with each student receiving individual tutoring. “I made an open application for mentors on LinkedIn [Scheffel is the first transgender guy to get the hug Influencer professional networking site], and many more people pitched their help. Then we began to propose new ways of development, with other courses within technology. Beyond coding, in spaces such as knowledge and business science, human resources and other fields. After all, other trans people should have all kinds of careers rather than just a few options,” she said.
After this restructuring process, the online edition of EducaTRANSforma will be offering online in August 2020, this time for 52 participants. “[Virtual change] changed the rules of the game because I was able to open up opportunities for all of Brazil,” Scheffel noted, adding that more than 1500 people expressed interest when EducaTRANSforma announced the relaunch.
“It’s incredible, but I also noticed the fact that a lot of other people needed an opportunity and I needed to evolve the project,” Scheffel said. that provided the technical education platform. Other edtechs, such as Women, Apply!, which aims to inspire women to apply for jobs, have also joined the EducaTRANSforma network.
Meanwhile, Scheffel turned business consulting into a product and began offering in-house exercises to help companies attract and retain transgender talent. These activities have allowed the startup to reach its ability to exercise students. EducaTRANSforma closed 2021 with a construction of more than 3000% of participants. For the cohort ending in February 2022, the startup will have exercised 1,500 people. And what was a social commission has become a real business, with a social branch that supports non-profit activities.
DIVERSITY REQUESTS
The increase in the use of EducaTRANSforma courses is also due to the boom in hiring due to the pandemic, accompanied by a growing call for recommendation and the interest of companies to increase the diversity of the workforce. “We know that some tragic occasions like Black Lives Matter have spurred this call for diversity and, more specifically, transgender discussion, which was virtually non-existent in business until then,” Scheffel said.
However, the businessman said organized movements have succeeded in holding corporations accountable for expanding the percentage of blacks in their workforce. However, the same has not yet happened with respect to the transgender population. trans people,” Scheffel said. The founder added that his company focuses on intersectionality and looks at other social markers, such as race. The businessman said that this is fundamental given that black trans women are the organization that suffers the most from inequality.
According to the founder, 2020 was a busy year for edtech, which welcomed 30 corporations when the pandemic hit with personalized education and advice. Diversity objectives. At the same time, I’m there to help with education, occasions and everything else,” Scheffel said.
“But the saddest thing is the feeling that [corporations] are only [increasing hiring of other trans people] because they don’t want to be around other [transgender] people on a regular basis,” she added. In addition, according to Scheffel, corporations have become more reluctant to rent trans professionals as corporations reopened their offices.
To address those concerns, EducaTRANSforma has developed a path in which edtech stays with the company 4 months after graduates are hired. It gives a positive paint atmosphere.
“It’s about deliberately hiring and caring about other people rather than simply focusing on integrating other people into the business. Fortunately, we were able to continue working intensively, despite the year 2022, with a reduction in the diversity of companies. Perspective, as well as elections, war and everything else,” Scheffel said.
To help corporations evolve their approaches to intersectionality in their hiring practices, EducaTRANSforma has just introduced its own platform, where applicants can log in and capture their social bookmarks and social-emotional skills and professional interests. In addition, members can self-assess their employability and also asynchronous education programs. According to Scheffel, the platform launched in early November recently has 1,000 members.
As part of the current development phase, companies will be able to access the applicant pool for a monthly fee. “This is an anti-bias and anti-rotation platform. Companies rent to other people they’ve already enjoyed and those applicants typically perform better in interviews, while trans people struggle to recognize their own ability because they haven’t had a formal party yet, and that’s what we need to address,” Scheffel said.
In one year, the entrepreneur expects EducaTRANSforma to be the largest training and hiring platform in Brazil aimed at diverse talents. this regard,” Scheffel noted, adding that the company will also continue to exercise other people for consumers according to their needs.
“We must also continue to help other transgender people access opportunities that are constantly denied them. We need to help reduce turnover and hiring rates for other people from underrepresented teams so that the company symbol reflects Brazilian society. We have a lot of other people to support, and the market wants us. “