Wingspans

Wingspans is a Providence, Rhode Island-based online career navigation platform that helps students and adult learners explore the world of work through first-person stories from people in a wide range of jobs. The platform hosts roughly 700 real-world stories organized into career, school, major and employer pages, so a user can see multiple perspectives on a given field from people at different experience levels and from different genders and backgrounds. The stated aim is for learners without prior exposure to the world of work, or without role models, to find people similar to themselves on the platform.

The user journey begins with a story-driven personality assessment based on the Holland Codes, after which learners are matched to their top 10 careers. Additional tools include a resume builder that outputs an ATS-parseable resume, skills and interest inventories, and a shareable portfolio. The experience is gamified with points, with plans to tie points to badges and badges to milestones. Development priorities cited in 2023 included greater interactivity, accessibility improvements such as simplified content, adjusted literacy levels and multilingual support, and integration with school Student Information Systems to measure effects on persistence and completion rates.

Founding story

Lindsay Kuhn founded the company in 2014 as "Inventing Heron" while working on an engineering PhD at Brown University. The web-based platform, which helps young people learn about careers through personal stories, was inspired by radio journalist Studs Terkel's work capturing American workers' voices in the 1970s. While teaching in a Providence classroom on a National Science Foundation fellowship, Kuhn observed students struggling to connect their learning to the larger world of work and built a platform to help them navigate careers through the stories of real people.

Business model

Wingspans distributes its platform through institutional relationships, including two-year and four-year colleges, employer partners and community-based organizations, alongside support from the U.S. Department of Education. Employers are represented on the platform through dedicated employer pages developed in partnership with organizations such as Polaris MEP.

Traction

As of May 2023 the company reported over 60,000 active users, relationships with two-year and four-year colleges, three employer partners, and support from the U.S. Department of Education. In mid-2023 leadership noted rapid growth with substantial qualitative but limited quantitative outcome data.

Latest developments

In 2023 Wingspans was named a finalist in the U.S. Department of Education's Future Finder Challenge, received $60,000 for prototype development, and joined a six-month virtual accelerator culminating in a demo day and proposal in fall 2023. Work during the accelerator focused on accessibility, multilingual and simplified content, deeper gamification, and plans to integrate with school Student Information Systems to measure persistence and completion outcomes.