SkillCo, born from an 18-month UVU research partnership, now serves three Utah school districts. New AI-ready student portfolios and a proposed SheTech integration aim to turn coursework and real-world experience into a verified career record.
Orem, Utah — September 24, 2026
SkillCo, the Orem, Utah-based career-readiness platform previously profiled in TechBuzz, has grown from an 18-month research and development partnership with Utah Valley University into a platform now being used by UVU and three Utah K-12 school districts.
The company is working with Provo City School District, Nebo School District and Canyons School District as it expands its approach to helping students understand the skills they are developing, connect those skills to career opportunities and identify education and training pathways.
Steve Lockhart, founder and CEO of SkillCo, built the idea out of his own uncertain path through college. Lockhart graduated from UVU in December 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, after spending much of his senior year online.
"I was like, just send the piece of paper in the mail and I'll be fine," Lockhart said.
His path from degree to career was not straightforward. Lockhart earned a finance degree at UVU, but some of his most relevant professional experience came through four legislative internships at the Utah State Capitol and a stint running government affairs for the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce — work more closely aligned with political science than finance.
"That was an interesting situation to be in, because I was only about two to three months away from graduating with a finance degree, which is the industry of business," Lockhart said. "But I was being recruited out to be in government affairs, which is political science."
The pull toward public policy also had a family connection. Lockhart's mother, Becky Lockhart, served in the Utah House of Representatives and became the state's first female Speaker of the House.
"She's someone that I look up to immensely," Lockhart said.
The mismatch between his degree and his eventual career path became part of the premise behind SkillCo.
"So don't get tunnel vision with your degree. Just know that your degree's gonna open the door and teach you a bunch of skills along the way that are applicable throughout lots of different jobs in different industries," Lockhart said.
Developed Alongside UVU
UVU became SkillCo's first institutional partner when the product was still, in Lockhart's words, essentially an Excel spreadsheet.
The university opened its campus as a research and development environment for the concept, giving Lockhart access to students, professors, academic advisors and other university resources.
"Come here, we love your idea, and use our students, use any of our departments, use the deans, the professors," Lockhart recalled being told.
Students, professors and academic advisors contributed feedback during roughly 18 months of research and development before UVU became SkillCo's first paying institutional partner.
The university has continued its relationship with SkillCo, renewing the partnership through the end of the 2027-28 academic year.
Richelle Andersen, assistant dean of UVU's Woodbury School of Business, previously described SkillCo's value to TechBuzz this way:
"Unlike traditional self-reflective tools, SkillCo empowers students to take control of their future by showing them how their courses connect directly to real-world career paths. It gives both students and educators the clarity to focus learning around the practical, problem-solving skills today's employers demand."
Astrid Tuminez, former president of UVU, similarly described the platform's approach on the SkillCo website:
"Skillco is a groundbreaking platform that not only transforms students' academic transcripts into skill-based portfolios but also helps them recognize the value of their education in real time," Tuminez said. "By mapping their coursework to tangible skills, students can clearly see how their efforts contribute to their career readiness and employability."
From One University to Three School Districts
After developing and piloting the platform with Utah Valley University, SkillCo began expanding into K-12 education. Today, the company is working with UVU and three Utah school districts: Provo City School District (Provo, UT), Nebo School District (Spanish Fork, UT), and Canyons School District (Sandy, UT).
Provo was the first of the three districts to adopt the platform.
Clay Bingham, CTE director for Provo School District, said the partnership has already changed how some students see the relationship between their coursework and potential careers.
"It has been great working with Skillco," Bingham said. "We were able to show several students last semester how the work they have been doing in CTE relates to different careers and opportunities. I am excited to see where we go with this. The possibility of aligning the work we do in our courses at the high school level with future opportunities is just what students, parents and our communities need."
Early survey data from Provo students who used SkillCo provides an initial measure of that impact.
According to data shared by Lockhart with TechBuzz, 87% of participating students said they discovered a new career interest through SkillCo, while 93% said they learned about a postsecondary education option they had not previously considered. All of the surveyed students said the platform helped them better understand their next steps in education and career planning.
Seventy percent said SkillCo's portfolio-building tools were valuable for documenting their CTE experience.
The early results do not represent every student in the district, but they provide an initial indication of how SkillCo is attempting to measure its impact beyond simply counting participating schools. Nebo School District's Advanced Learning Center, led by principal Jo Lynn Ford, is piloting SkillCo for the 2026-27 academic year. Lockhart said he plans to spend more time on-site helping students register and use the platform.
At Canyons School District, the implementation moved quickly. "We onboarded them in about two weeks," Lockhart said, attributing the pace in part to the district's existing course catalog being available in a machine-readable format.
Canyons' CTE programs are scheduled to relocate to the new Canyons Innovation Center, a $17.2 million project converting the former eBay regional headquarters in Draper into a career-training campus scheduled to open in August 2027. Reid Newey, director of the Canyons Innovation Center, has described the challenge facing today's students by noting that "many of the jobs students will one day pursue have not yet been invented."
That premise aligns with SkillCo's focus on documenting skills and experiences rather than treating a diploma as the complete record of a student's preparation for work.
Building a More Complete Student Portfolio
SkillCo's newest development is aimed at making student accomplishments more comprehensive and more portable. An updated portfolio export is designed to be readable by artificial intelligence tools, allowing a student's skills and accomplishments to be consumed by systems beyond SkillCo itself.
"We want the data to be formatted in a way where an AI can come in and read it, consume it, and know exactly what this student has accomplished," Lockhart said. He described the new export as "actually much more dynamic than what we currently offer with just the dashboard of data."
But the AI-readable format is only part of the broader development. SkillCo has expanded its portfolio to include experiences outside traditional classroom projects.
"Students do more than just projects," Lockhart said, describing feedback from partner districts. "They're in clubs, they're on sports teams, they do student government, they do so many different things than just a project in the classroom."
Students can now create entries for extracurricular activities, work experience and school projects, with those experiences connected to the skills they demonstrate alongside verified coursework. The goal is to give students a more complete record of what they have learned and done — not simply a transcript of the courses they have completed.
"We've seen a lot of employers like it because they see the skill set of the students that are graduating," Lockhart said.
What Comes Next
SkillCo's next phase is focused on expanding its reach across Utah.
In addition to its ongoing partnership with Utah Valley University and its work with Provo, Nebo and Canyons school districts, the company is developing additional partnerships stretching from Washington County in southern Utah to Weber and Davis counties in northern Utah.
For SkillCo, the expansion is ultimately about reaching more students and helping them better understand what comes after graduation.
The platform is designed to help students identify the skills they are developing, connect those skills to career opportunities and see the education and training pathways that can help them pursue those opportunities.
As SkillCo expands, the company plans to continue working directly with students and educators to improve the platform and measure its impact on career readiness.
The broader goal is to give students greater clarity about where their education can take them while helping them build a tangible record of the skills and experiences they develop along the way.
Learn more at join.skillco.com. See example below of a fictional Skillco student portfolio:
