Dan Pabon,
D-Denver
On the heels of last week’s bipartisan in the Colorado legislature, Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, announced Monday morning that Colorado has landed one of 20 pilot slots for President Obama’s TechHire to train job seekers the skills they need to thrive in a high-tech economy.
Obama is set to announce the pilot sites in a speech to the National League of Cities Monday.
Denver joins other sites such as Albuquerquem Detroit, Kansas City, New York City, Louisville, Minneapolis, Nashville and San Francisco.
With the designation for the 21 pilot programs comes $100 million in federal grants for job training programs Companies such as Microsoft and Cisco also are expected to to offer training programs in conjunction.
“We have to think big and think differently about training the workforce of the 21st century,” Pabon said in a statement. “TechHire is a challenge to bring public and private leaders together to train skilled workers into high demand jobs.”
Last week, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry said there were at least 15,000 tech jobs in Colorado looking for qualified applicants who have the skills necessary. The newly announced program cited more than 500,000 openings across the country in fields such as software development, network administration, and cyber-security, “many of which did not even exist just a decade ago.”
TechHire training could come from universities and community colleges, workshops and “boot camps” in coding and applications.
“We are thrilled that TechHire has chosen Colorado as one of their pilot regions, and know it will provide a great path for Coloradans to access high-demand jobs quickly, meet critical needs for our businesses, and help strengthen our economy,” said Fiona Arnold, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, one of the pilot programs partners.
Other partners include the Colorado Technology Association and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
The program also will work with such training programss as SeedPaths, a coding and application school in Denver, and Swiftpage, a Colorado-based business solutions company to “create a pipeline for success from skills development into internships, apprenticeships, and job placement in great paying careers.”
“At Swiftpage, our focus has been getting the next generation of the workforce interested in and excited about careers in technology,” company CEO John Oechsle said in a press release.
“Initiatives like TechHire will allow us to take that a step further. It’s never too early or too late to develop the skills needed for these high tech jobs.”
