Women Powering IoT Talent Pipeline & Tech Diversity in Detroit

DETROIT - Jan. 21, 2018 - PRLog -- On 1-11-2018, these women announced Uplift, Inc. had launched the first Detroit community education program as part of Cisco's first-ever State Digital Acceleration program launched October 30, 2017 in Michigan.

Alison Gleeson SVP Cisco states, "We at Cisco, recognized early on digitization as a professional trade around networking and now data analytics and IoT."

Uplift, Inc., a Cisco Networking Academy, has created an OPEN IT school concept where coursework is available anytime, anywhere on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops supplemented by Experiential Learning Labs at seven (7) Detroit Public Library locations for those needing assistance with their assignments. These classes lead to NEW COLLAR IT job certifications.

These Cisco Networking Academy classes are FREE to Detroiters as they will be funded by the corporations, foundations and governments. "In the next few weeks, Governor Snyder will unveil the Talent Marshall Plan to the Workforce Development committee of which I am a member, to fund IT training to reduce the IT talent shortage," states Bettie Cook-Scott.

At the press conference, Uplift, Inc. unveiled it had registered 180 Detroiters for its first Cisco Networking Academy class, Intro to the Internet of Things (IoT).  The Intro to IoT class exposes residents to IoT career opportunities and career pathways. Today 1-19-2018, the class has 219 diverse Detroiters preparing to enter the computer programming, networking, quality and data analytics professional trades.

Registrant demographics are:

90% people of color --
60% women
51% over the age of 40

Ida Byrd-Hill, President of Uplift, Inc. states, "We are making good headway to achieve our goal to assist 5000 Detroiters secure IT certifications, pioneering a lead position of implementing Tech Diversity across ethnic, gender and age categories." Registration for this first class ends January 27, 2018. http://www.upliftinc.org/cisco.aspx