Gradesmatch

Unathi September , South Africa

Unathi founded Gradesmatch as a platform for young people to access career advice and information, as well as to further educational opportunities across South Africa and Namibia. Gradesmatch was founded after Unathi attended the One Young World 2013 Johannesburg Summit, and has impacted more than 84,000 people to date. Gradesmatch works to educate young learners about potential career paths that suit their academic strengths and interests. Gradesmatch helps students to make well informed career decisions by giving them information about the job market, higher education and scholarship opportunities. The platform specifically caters to students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to help provide relevant career guidance to communities that are typically underserved. Although it primarily operates as an online platform, Gradesmatch also hosts career expos and teacher training sessions to further maximise its reach. Gradesmatch is zero-rated by Vodafone in South Africa, which means that Vodafone users can access the platform from their phones for free, without credit or data. The organisation also offers recruitment services for southern African companies to source top talent. It also provides monitoring and evaluation consulting to refine organisational education programmes as well as market research and advertising services.

Unathi was inspired to start Gradesmatch as a social business after hearing TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie speak about sustainable giving through for-profit business at the 2013 Summit