TechMeUp x CorrelAid

Partner Organization: TechMeUp (TMU)
Team: 2 Data Analysts (CorrelAid), 1 Intern (CorrelAid), 1 Technical Lead (CorrelAid), 1 Project Lead (CorrelAid), 1 Project Lead (TechMeUp), 1 Domain Expert (TechMeUp)
Topic: Identifying successful candidates for TechMeUp support
Skills: Business Intelligence, Data Engineering, Google toolbox (Looker)
Project start: 1 March 2025
Project end: 8 August 2025 (5 months)
Place: Remote and in person
Project Goals/Achievements: Built a stronger data infrastructure and interactive dashboards to give TechMeUp clear insights into student outcomes and job market demands, helping the organization better support future tech talent.

This blog post was written by Paulina van der Doe.

Project Goals / Achievements

Built a stronger data infrastructure and interactive dashboards to give TechMeUp clear insights into student outcomes and job market demands, helping the organization better support future tech talent.

About TechMeUp

TechMeUp is a non-profit organization that creates a promising future in tech for potential talent. We do this by preparing upcoming talents with ambition for jobs in the world of tech. Education is essential for this step, but not everyone can afford it. That is why TechMeUp invests in potential tech talent by providing interest-free loans. Together with different educators and partners, we work on creating better opportunities and a more secure future for our students.

Why This Project Started

TechMeUp provides loans to people who want to switch into tech but struggle to finance their education. These are people with the potential to succeed, but who face challenges such as age, language barriers, or limited financial means.
To make the most of the funding TechMeUp can provide, it’s important to identify which students have the highest chance of success.
At the same time, the rise of AI has shifted the qualifications required for junior roles. Skills that were sufficient a few years ago are no longer enough today.
For these reasons, TechMeUp sought insights into both the types of students most likely to succeed and the skills most in demand in the job market.

Collaboration with CorrelAid – Building Practical Data Tools

When TechMeUp partnered with CorrelAid NL, the first idea was to build a model that could predict which students would be most successful in finding jobs. As we explored the data together, it became clear that the dataset was too small and incomplete for this approach. Instead, the team focused on building practical tools and analyses that would give TechMeUp clearer insights and support in their work.

To keep things easy to use and maintain, we decided against complex or costly tools. Instead, we worked fully in the Google ecosystem: Google Sheets, Colab, and Looker Studio. This way, everything connected smoothly with TechMeUp’s existing processes and could be used without extra training.

One of the first steps was to improve the data foundation. Much of TechMeUp’s information was stored in Google Sheets, but not always in a structured way. Our volunteers created a Python script in Google Colab to anonymize, clean, and organize the data, and then feed it into a Google Sheet linked with Looker Studio. Job market data was added through an open API, creating a reliable way of combining TechMeUp’s own student data with information about employer demand. With just a few changes and the press of a button, TechMeUp can now refresh the whole pipeline in the cloud.

With this foundation in place, the team ran analyses to better understand how long students stay in the job market and what their journeys look like. These results were brought together in an interactive Looker Studio dashboard, which shows patterns in job search times, placement rates, and training outcomes. It already provides useful insights and will only grow more valuable as new data is added.

Conclusion

The project may not have produced a predictive model, but it did deliver something more practical: tools and insights that TechMeUp can use right away. With a stronger data setup, clear dashboards, and fresh job market information, TechMeUp is now better equipped to support its students.

Fun side note: one of our volunteers even secured a job at TechMeUp through this collaboration.

CorrelAid Volunteers: Archana Gajula, Daan van der Linden, Kally Chung, Tunca Bozkurt, Paulina van der Doe
TechMeUp: Nikky Hofland, Lee-Anne van der Merwe