Q&A with Ahmad Elzahdan the Co-Founder and CEO of Audo

By Solomon Elekwa

Students, graduates, and aspiring professionals face unprecedented challenges in navigating their career choices and finding the right opportunities. To explore innovative solutions to these challenges, we sat down with Ahmad Elzahdan, CEO & Co-Founder of Audo, a pioneering career development company revolutionising how individuals approach their professional journeys. With a deep understanding of the complexities inherent in career decision-making, Ahmad aims to revolutionise the way people learn and work from skills to jobs. At Audo Ahmad carries a distinct vision for the future of education, championing it as a direct route to employment and economic mobility.

Before co-founding Audo, Ahmad had contributed to workforce development in international markets, creating partnerships to scale education to millions through Manchester Business School, GEMS Education, and Coursera in the Middle East. 

The FutureList: Can you give us an overview of your company, its innovation, and what inspired its development?

Ahmad: Sure. Audo is an AI-powered career development platform designed to address the challenges individuals face in navigating the rapidly changing landscape of work and education. Our platform offers adaptive skill building, seamlessly integrating the application of acquired skills into career opportunities. The Audo platform provides custom-tailored career journeys, addressing skills gaps, personalisation issues, and inefficient skill enhancement, and offers real-time insights into an individual’s worth in the job market. The inspiration behind Audo’s development lies in our vision to create a better way for people to access relevant and up-to-date skills, connecting them with tangible outcomes such as jobs and meaningful employment.

The FutureList: Can you elaborate on the key features that set Audo apart from traditional education approaches and how your platform disrupts the skills acquisition and job matching process?

Ahmad: Audo distinguishes itself from traditional education approaches through several key features, disrupting the skills acquisition and job matching process. The Audo platform offers features such as adaptive learning paths, real-time market insights, career journeys, seamless integration of skills, an AI Career Concierge, a user-friendly interface, and job matching.

By combining these features, Audo disrupts the conventional approach to education, providing a dynamic, personalised, and real-world-focused platform that empowers individuals to thrive in today’s competitive job market. Audo is pioneering a new CareerTech Industry with an unmatched combination of affordability, personalisation, and engaging simplicity.

The FutureList: What are your primary objectives in leveraging technology for your startup and can you outline the key technology challenges or gaps you’re currently facing?

Ahmad: Audo’s primary objective is to revolutionise education and career development, making it accessible, personalised, and impactful focusing on in-demand skills. The key technology challenges and gaps we currently face revolve around enhancing machine learning algorithms for even more hyper-personalised learning paths, integrating cutting-edge technologies for skills assessment and career matching, and addressing any scalability and data security considerations. We are tackling this by building our own Knowledge Graph. We are dedicated to overcoming these challenges, ensuring that our technology remains at the forefront of innovation to empower individuals on their career journeys.

The FutureList: Are there any specific technology or talent needs you currently have or trends you are closely monitoring for potential integration?

Ahmad: At present, Audo is focusing on enhancing its AI and ML algorithms to provide even more hyper-personalised career guidance and job-matching capabilities. We are also exploring partnerships with influencers and industry experts to expand our course offerings and certifications. In terms of talent needs, we are actively seeking skilled developers and data scientists to strengthen our technical team and drive innovation in our platform. Additionally, we are monitoring trends in remote work and virtual collaboration tools to optimise our team’s productivity and flexibility. Overall, our goal is to remain agile and adaptive, continually seeking opportunities to improve our technology and attract top talent to fuel our growth and impact in the market.

The FutureList: Understanding the challenges of entering a new market, what is your future expansion outlook, and how do you plan to grow your presence in the global market?

Ahmad: Audo’s future expansion outlook revolves around strategic market entries, acknowledging the challenges inherent in global expansion. Our approach involves meticulous planning, adapting to diverse market dynamics, and establishing robust partnerships to ensure sustainable and impactful growth in the global arena but ensuring we meet local demands.

The FutureList: Speaking of partnerships, can you discuss a significant collaboration or partnership that has contributed to Audo’s growth?

Ahmad: Audo’s collaboration with American Student Assistance (ASA) has significantly shaped our product. ASA’s dedication to assisting Gen Z with career exploration aligns seamlessly with our mission. This partnership, fueled by user feedback from the ASA EvolveMe platform, has played a pivotal role in refining Audo to its current state. The insights and perspectives gathered from ASA users have been invaluable, contributing to the development of a more robust and user-friendly career development platform. Together, we are empowering individuals on their journey to meaningful career journeys.

The FutureList: Considering Audo’s future growth and development, what are the key milestones you aim to achieve in the next few years?

Ahmad: Audo’s primary goals in the near future include securing gainful employment for one million individuals through our platform and expanding Audo’s availability in various languages, ensuring a broader reach and impact on a global scale.

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