Musa, a GCL 2023 project, one of the 13 initiatives highlighted by a WEF report.
By: Ana Gomez Garces (B'25)
Musa, Monica Ramos’ GCL 2023 project, is one of the 13 initiatives highlighted by the “Putting Skills First: Opportunities for Building Efficient and Equitable Labour Markets” report published by the World Economic Forum with the support of PwC.
Musa was founded in 2021 with the aim of bridging educational gaps through micro-learning to empower the workforce in the region. Musa is accessible, leveraging chat applications people already use, such as WhatsApp. What sets Musa apart is its unique approach, employing metacognition methodology through conversational experiences, and blending behavioral sciences with micro-learning techniques. Its technology enables organizations to train thousands of individuals simultaneously and track real-time progress through personalized reports. Currently, there are over 200,000 registered users across more than 20 active projects. Over the years, Musa has trained over 350,000 individuals through partnerships with various organizations, including the United Nations Development Program, Teach for Peru, Tecnologico de Monterrey, among others.
The “Putting Skills First: Opportunities for Building Efficient and Equitable Labour Markets'' report was written by the World Economic Forum with the support of PwC to explore the “skills-first” approach, the opportunities it brings and successful lighthouses. The “skills-first" approach focuses on whether someone has the right skills and competencies for a particular role, instead of focusing on how the skills have been acquired. The report states the importance of a skills-first approach to contribute to broader societal cohesion and widening access to opportunities, and the potential it has to become a tool for inclusivity and diversity within the workforce. An independent expert panel selected a diverse set of Skills First “Lighthouses”, including Musa, that are featured in the report. Musa’s section mentions the project has impacted 350,000 individuals in two years, achieving a 90% completion rate and average of 4.8/5 participant satisfaction score. It also mentions the UNDP partnership aimed at financial inclusion for Venezuelan migrants resulted in 40% opening their first savings account.
Monica remembers with great enthusiasm and gratitude her time in the GCL program:
"GCL allowed me to understand the reality and opportunities in the countries of the region, and to build genuine relationships with my colleagues, who are now friends. These relationships have enabled us to collaborate and expand the impact of our projects. Likewise, GCL provided me with the opportunity to work on how Musa could grow to broaden the reach of our impact through allies, which led us to reach 350,000 people impacted by the end of 2023." - Monica Ramos
About Monica:
Monica Ramos (GCL 2023, Peru) is a social entrepreneur passionate about contributing to solving social and environmental problems. In 2021, she founded Musa, a company with the purpose of closing gaps in access to education through micro-learning on chat applications that people already use, such as WhatsApp, to train the workforce in the region. Before Musa, Monica founded Resto-Zero, a company that rescues coffee cherry husks and converts them into input for the food industry and additional income for small coffee farmers in Peru. She also worked at Sanima, a social enterprise that provides safe and sustainable sanitation services to families in human settlements in urban areas of Lima, Peru.
Monica was part of the GCL 2023 program and her project sought to scale the impact of Musa, which was recognized as one of the top five projects at the end of the program. Prior to her time at Georgetown University, she studied Industrial Engineering at the University of Lima and earned a Master's degree in Environmental Sciences from Aalborg University, the Technical University of Hamburg, the University of Aveiro, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Additionally, she completed a diploma in Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness in Latin America at Columbia University in New York City.