A company headquartered in Riverchase is partnering with Google in a venture to provide testing and certification for digital workers using cloud-based technology.
ProctorU, which recently celebrated its 10th year in business, rolled out its work on Monday with Google’s G Suite Certification.
Though the terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the two companies have inked a multi-million dollar deal over several years. The collaboration also has the potential to spur more activity between big tech companies and home-grown ventures in Alabama, Jarrod Morgan, ProctorU’s founder and chief strategy officer, said.
“This was the culmination of a lot of hard work,” Morgan said. “We’ve built a stellar reputation in higher education, and that served us until we moved into professional testing for corporate clients. This is an Alabama company, with Alabama technology and Alabama venture backing. To have Google vet the whole market and then choose us validates that great things can happen in Alabama and in Birmingham. This is not the last story like this.”
ProctorU has developed, in essence, online testing and quality control technology. In higher education and professional information tech testing, it’s more common to take tests remotely. In addition to facilitating testing, ProctorU employs a patented, artificial intelligence program which monitors test takers for any signs of cheating.
“It doesn’t blink,” Morgan said. “It doesn’t miss a thing. It makes sure that quality control is there.”
Google came into the story when it sought a way to offer G Suite Certification, which shows a worker is proficient in using cloud-based tech tools to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations and files, among other skills.
The G Suite test tools have been in development since late 2017, Morgan said, while the technology to support it was developed in 2016. ProctorU employs about 400 people, with eight offices around the world.
“For an organization like Google, who were mindful of their reputation, the quality of the program, the scale, they thought we were a good fit,” he said. “We spent a lot of time and effort putting this together.”