With their new start-up, GB Osuntogun ’18 and Destiny Nwafor ’17 are using AI to help students and job-seekers find success
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 2023 with a degree in economics, Gboyega “GB” Osuntogun ’18 was unsure of his next step. “I felt like the odd one out for not immediately wanting a job in banking,” he said. In talking with other friends, he realized he wasn’t alone. Many of them weren’t satisfied with their jobs or had misgivings about the best paths to take.
“If we have the clear advantage of the education we did, and we’re still not 100 percent satisfied, how can we change that?” Osuntogun remembers asking himself. That’s when he ran into fellow alum Destiny Nwafor ’17 at the Lagos, Nigeria, home of their mutual friend and class of 2018 alum Atah Okaisabor. The two instantly reconnected, bonding over the daunting career process for those in their 20s. Nwafor, who had been working as a software engineer at Microsoft since her 2021 graduation from Cornell, started thinking about Osuntogun’s question from a coding and engineering point of view. They decided to tackle the problem by starting an online career network for recent college graduates in his home country of Nigeria. Launched in March of 2023, HireMe’s network grew quickly to about 15,000 active users, but also introduced them to a new problem: people were applying for jobs that didn’t really match up with their background. What if, they wondered, people knew earlier on which jobs best fit their personalities and skill sets?
After launching HireMe, the two continued roughing out ideas, and creating a proprietary algorithm for a new business that would use AI to give people of all ages the tools to chart a successful path, whether in finding a college, choosing a major, finding a career, or changing career paths later in life. The result is their company, Pathfinder, which launched in beta in early 2024 (check it out at pathfinderai.net).
Pathfinder uses AI-powered quizzes to give the user more clarity about their skills, personality, and aptitudes, and it suggests possible college degrees and programs, career paths, and more. The tools provided by Pathfinder go deeper than many online quiz tools. For example, they don’t just match a high school student to a college based on grade point average or standardized test scores. The questions go deeper into what the student wants to study, how far away from home they want to be, and what extracurriculars are most important to them. “Our goals are to give students higher application success rates because they’re applying to schools that are perfectly aligned with them,” Osuntogun said. Another bonus: By using AI to guide students toward potential college majors and career paths that might be a good fit for them, Nwafor said the post-college transition into the job market will be “less confusing and scary,” because they’ll have been properly matched with the right career.
Thinking back to their own college process ultimately led Nwafor and Osuntogun to reconnect with Emily McDowell, Williston’s Director of College Advising, as they launched Pathfinder. “Destiny was actually my advisee at Williston, so it was really exciting to hear of this new venture,” says McDowell. “I think there are a lot of applications for these kinds of tools alongside the one-on-one support we provide in Williston’s college process.” She notes that Williston is hoping to try a pilot version of Pathfinder next year, to help students consider the range of majors and careers available to them. “We have been trying to find a search tool or quiz for this, but haven’t been satisfied with the existing options. It’s exciting to see this product being created to match our needs.” In the meantime, Osuntogun and Nwafor are building out a waitlist for high schools interested in using AI to help students plan their careers “Thinking about Williston guided me back to the things that really lit me up,” Nwafor reflected. “I hope that this program can keep those things at the forefront for those seeking college and career paths.”