Looking to Build Out Your AI Start-Up? It All Starts With Talent

So you have your Pitch Deck ready for Seed Funding correct? You’ve sent it to your inner circle of advisors. Countless nights reviewing the market in attempt to jump ahead of the curb. Finally an early morning text: RGLN3…you up? Call me around 9. I have an investor.

Too early to pop the champagne. But not too early to consider the next obstacle

Who do you acquire to build out the strategy? Is there an AI swap meet for talent?

Short answer yes – well sort of. Upstarts like Polywork are rolling out a LinkedIn type of connective talent tissue for startups who need to pay out talent to collaborate. The issue with these “work for hire (or collaborate for hire) platforms is loyalty. Can you trust a person you only know via “talent grab” to not only give them your best work, but also adhere to the NDA that I HOPE you have ready for them to sign?

A report by Venture Beat answers some of these questions while doling out a list of demands one must consider due to the paucity of AI talent and the novelty of the AI market.

“…there is growing concern that advances in AI are being slowed down by a shortage of trained talent that’s needed to scale AI solutions across organizations. This talent shortage is slated to cause a massive imbalance in AI adoption and its scalability across the enterprise.”

Cart Before the Horse

Is there really a shortage, or is the problem our inability to utilize talent effectively? There is much discussion across forums about the right enablement and talent strategy for AI. But the underlying problem is not the lack of skills but the lack of the right individuals connecting with the right opportunities. There are many extraordinary people in the market who would be perfect fits for a career in AI, but the industry simply is not doing enough to provide the right platform to launch their careers.

How will a Shortage of AI Talent Enterprise and Consumer Adoption?

There is growing concern that advances in AI are being slowed down by a shortage of trained talent that’s needed to scale AI solutions across organizations. This talent shortage is slated to cause a massive imbalance in AI adoption and its scalability across the enterprise.

An AI Talent Development Strategy to Supercharge Your Startup Growth!

The solution lies in creating a strong talent development strategy along with the right platforms and frameworks for talent to be cultivated, by:

Identifying those best fit for enablement programs: From backgrounds like mathematics, statistics, computer science and economics we can get a talent pool that is already acclimatized to structural problem-solving.
Enabling career transitions: Apart from identifying the most suitable talent, there must be well-designed enablement programs to equip talent with the right skill sets.
Building robust best-in-class in-house learning platforms: Developing learning platforms for upskilling and reskilling in niche areas is vital.
Nurturing partnerships with startups, MOOC platforms: Companies need to invest in partnerships and training for employees with open-source experience and startups specializing in various AI domains.
Nurturing partnerships with universities and think tanks: Collaboration with academia, universities and research organizations, AI consortiums and think tanks brings access to state-of-the-art training materials and research.
Initiating mentoring programs from experienced AI professionals: Engaging experienced professionals who can provide the much-needed support and knowledge to train the rest of the team is vital for disseminating the much-needed added skills and technical know-how.
Creating incentives: Focus on creating a proper incentive structure to nudge employees toward continuous upskilling.
Sponsoring temporary gig projects and job rotation: Creating a support system for employees to work on side projects and hobby projects within the framework of their organization, as well as rotating job roles at proper intervals, is another strategy that can help bolster the skills and provide a better platform for talent development.
Instituting hackathons and Ideathons: Hackathons are one of the best ways to get the talent pool hooked into cutting-edge technologies and to give them valuable knowledge., the recruitment process is not customized to identify potential candidates who could be trained easily, as hiring managers are not experienced in sourcing these easily trainable candidates. This causes deficiencies in building up a steady talent pipeline.
Creating learning opportunities: Encouraging employees to contribute to technical white papers on AI topics, participating in knowledge sharing across various AI journals, participating in roundtables and working with industry analysts are some of the other avenues to create learning opportunities.