Emerge Career is a New York-based reentry and workforce development company that partners with governments to train and place justice-involved and low-income people into high-paying, AI-resilient skilled-trade careers such as commercial truck driving, HVAC, and diesel technology. Its technology platform combines self-paced vocational coursework, exam prep, trauma-informed career coaching, and job placement, with training delivered in partnership with licensed schools and correctional agencies. Founded in 2022 out of Y Combinator by Uzoma Orchingwa and Gabriel Saruhashi, the company has won state and city contracts from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York City's Next Mile NYC program.
Uzoma 'Zo' Orchingwa is a Nigerian-American social entrepreneur and the co-founder and co-CEO of Emerge Career, an AI-powered workforce development and reentry company that partners with governments to train and place justice-involved and low-income people into high-paying, AI-resilient skilled trades. He previously co-founded Ameelio, a technology nonprofit that broke open the exploitative prison communications industry by offering free letters, calls and education to incarcerated people and their families. A Yale-trained lawyer and Cambridge criminologist who moonlit as a DJ, he has been named to MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 and Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business.