Life science app Rad Lab offers in-game, real life incentives.

For those raising the next generation of workforce talent at home, it may be a no-brainer that 12-year-olds are more likely to learn about future career opportunities from TikTok, YouTube or Duolingo than LinkedIn.

Yet much of the online conversation surrounding new career developments remains resigned to the adult corporatesphere.

SkillsGapp, a Greenville-based app platform, seeks to broaden that conversation to include the audience making those first steps toward a career.

The startup offers apps for a variety of fields including skilled trades, aerospace and advanced manufacturing, as well as the fast-growing life science industry. SkillsGapp's newest app, RadLab, gamifies life science careers for middle schoolers.

RadLab first bubbled into existence through conversations between SkillsGapp founder and CEO Tina Zwolinski, Upstate SC Alliance and SCBIO.

"We understand, and the industry understands, that we got to fill that pipeline," SCBIO CEO James Chappell told SC Biz News, adding that middle school is a key time in the development of interests that later feed into career paths. "So we want to catch them early enough."

The free game allows students to try a number of jobs ranging from the R&D side of the equation to manufacturing to nursing on for size and level up through a variety of challenges. Teens can test new medicines, obtain Food and Drug Administration approval, manage the manufacturing of products and use them to treat hospital patients.

Geofencing will link players to the non-virtual world of life sciences during game play through prompts that offer information on local industries and education pathways into the careers they are sampling.

"They will not only be playing the game and understand what it means to go in these different career paths, but they'll also have a pop-up that says, if you're in Columbia, did you know that Nephron is in your area and they have an average of this amount per year, or if they drive by another company, in the Upstate, it's the same thing," Chappell said. "They're getting life science skills without even realizing it, and also learning about these companies and the specific opportunities that there are here."

If an educational program, such as a certificate at a local...