Team VITAL Advances to Round 2 of $5M XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling Competition 

Team VITAL will develop a rapid re-skilling solution to empower participants to secure full-time employment. 

March 19, 2021 | 9:00 AM ET

BOSTON (March 11, 2021) -- Team VITAL, a collaboration between Colaberry, Gleechi and Banyan Tree Global, has been selected as one of 10 finalist teams from a total of 118 teams from 20 countries to advance to the next phase of the $5M XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling Competition. The team’s rapid re-skilling solution was selected for its choice of occupation, the viability of proposed solution, and methods of worker engagement. The 10 Qualified Teams will be evenly splitting a Milestone Prize purse of $1,000,000. 

Launched in June 2020, XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling incentivizes teams to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of rapid training and re-skilling solutions for individuals most vulnerable to employment loss in the United States. The solutions developed in this competition will reduce training time by at least 50% for occupations with a living wage and will be provided at no cost to the individual. 

Team VITAL is an international group of forward-thinking, mission-driven technologists, engineers, educators, innovators, and entrepreneurs on a shared mission to build a future where millions of workers can rapidly re-skill to lead productive and rewarding lives. The team is diverse and representative of the communities they strive to serve, with experience of overcoming adversities in life and in work. 

VITAL stands for Virtual Training for Accelerated Learning. It combines two award-winning platforms - Colaberry’s Refactored AI and Gleechi VR training platform - with a support system that will enable participants to rapidly develop and apply new skills with confidence in real-life scenarios. 

About Colaberry

Colaberry is a social enterprise with headquarters in Boston, MA. It provides in-demand tech and human skills training, supplies experts to businesses in need of data science and analytics talent and advises companies on data projects. 

About Gleechi

Gleechi is based in Stockholm, Sweden. It democratizes hands-on learning through a virtual reality training platform that enables easy setup of customized virtual reality training courses.

About Banyan Tree Global

Banyan Tree Global is an innovation growth platform, venture development firm, and early stage investor headquartered in Boston, MA.

For more information contact: 

Ram Katamaraja, CEO and Founder of Colaberry, at +1-617- 444-9689 or at ram@colaberry.com.

Jakob Way, CEO and Founder of Gleechi at +0046-73-444-1940 or at jakob.way@gleechi.com. 

Sanjeev Yadav, Founder, Banyan Tree Global at +1-802-598-3109 or at sanjeev@banyantreeglobal.com