Podium Education is an Austin-based edtech company that partners with colleges and universities to close the gap between a degree and a first job. Its flagship product, the Global Career Accelerator, is a for-credit, fully online program in which undergraduates of any major work on real projects for companies like Intel, L'Oreal, OpenAI and the GRAMMYs, build in-demand skills in data, marketing and coding, and collaborate with peers from dozens of countries. After acquiring the early-career talent platform Untapped in 2024, Podium now also connects its students directly to employers, turning coursework into a hiring pipeline.
Braven is a national nonprofit career accelerator that partners with large public universities and employers to help first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented college students land strong first jobs. Through a semester-long, cohort-based course followed by post-graduation support, Braven equips Fellows with the skills, confidence, experiences, and professional networks they need to translate a college degree into economic mobility. Founded in 2013 by former Teach For America executive Aimée Eubanks Davis, Braven has reached more than 15,000 Fellows across cities including Chicago, Newark, New York, Atlanta, the Bay Area, and beyond.