Ribit finds new home at Stone & Chalk

Ribit, our student job and internship matching platform, has been acquired by its anchor client, Australia’s largest emerging technology incubator and impact network, Stone & Chalk.

Not-for-profit Stone & Chalk brings together founders, talent, investors, industry, corporate and government stakeholders to drive growth, advocacy and commercialisation.

Ribit was launched in February 2016 by CSIRO’s Data61 to connect higher education students with STEM and digital skills to opportunities to work with innovative Australian businesses.

Research shows that students who undertaken paid work experiences and build new skills makes them more employable. Ribit created an important talent pipeline for innovative Australian SMEs and startups and strengthened connections across the innovation ecosystem. It has been incubated within Data61 and achieved great impact.

Over the past four years, the platform has built a growing community and marketplace with almost 40,000 students from 40 universities and TAFEs and 3000 of Australia’s most innovative employers as registered users.

Thousands of students have been matched to roles with high growth potential companies.  Ribit also conducted over 40 live speed-networking events around Australia with its university, TAFE and industry partners, involving over 20,000 face-to-face job interviews across the nation.

The platform has now reached the right level of maturity to transition out of CSIRO and continue to build its future model and deliver even more impact through Stone & Chalk, whose plan is to build out a fast- growing, thriving community of innovators across the nation by leveraging their network of startups, scale-ups, partners and investors.

Liz Jakubowski, Director of Ribit said: “We’d like to thank our supporters and the many participants from within Data61 and CSIRO who have been involved in our various events and activities. With your help, we’ve built a technically robust, successful platform that will continue to connect thousands of students to roles with employers. These opportunities will give students skills that will power our future industries and enable them to have successful careers, and businesses the critical skills capability they need to grow.

“We are proud to have contributed to the innovation ecosystem and established significant partnerships and networks through our activities and research. We’ve had a close relationship with Stone & Chalk from day one. They’re committed to continuing helping students connect with exciting businesses in emerging sectors and enabling both sides to help each other, so will make the perfect home for Ribit,” said Liz .

As Ribit’s anchor customer, Stone & Chalk has worked closely with the team since its launch and their business partners have engaged hundreds of very capable students with the platform’s help. Stone & Chalk will continue to ensure that students from every institution around Australia can access the most rewarding jobs and career opportunities in the country and to ensure as much talent as possible is able to flow to the sectors with the highest growth potential.