WEST WARWICK – Cox Communications was recognized recently by President Barack Obama when he unveiled ConnectALL, an initiative to help Americans, at all income levels, have Internet access.
The president announced the new initiative on March 9.
And Cox’s Connect2Compete, its discounted Internet service program for low-income K-12 families, was noted by Obama during the announcement. Cox said it is hosting more than 200 events across the country for these families, automatically qualifying those who attend for its low-cost broadband option.
“Today’s digital classrooms are tomorrow’s connected businesses. The investments we are making in closing the digital divide help ensure our students are prepared for their careers and lifelong success after school,” Cox Communications President Pat Esser said in a statement. “Together with partners like Univision, we are committed to closing the homework gap for all students, no matter where they live.”
The company said it is partnering with New York City-based Univision, a broadcasting company, to promote discounted Internet service through live programming, public service announcements and community events.
Cox, a founding partner of the Connect2Compete program, has connected nearly 160,000 people to the Internet over the last four years; K-12 families eligible for the National Free School Lunch program, TANF and SNAP benefits are eligible.
Five Questions With: Damian Ewens
Damian Ewens, director of TechHire Rhode Island, talks about the new initiative in Rhode Island with Providence Business News, and its goal to place 2,000 Rhode Islanders into high-paying information technology jobs over the next five years.
PBN: Tell me about Tech Hire RI and what it does
EWENS:TechHire Rhode Island is a new statewide initiative for delivering in-demand tech talent for Rhode Island employers. We have a goal of placing 2,000 Rhode Islanders into high-paying information technology jobs over the next five years. TechHire RI is a collective action initiative that: (1) is employer-driven, working with employers across industry to build hiring solutions aligned to IT job and training needs; (2) unlocks new talent, expanding the local IT talent pool by hiring for mastery, not pedigree; (3) grows proven education and training solutions, to include new higher education computer science (CS) minors/majors and best-in-class bootcamps and hiring onramps; and (4) funds success, such as the Wavemaker Fellowship for repaying tech job candidate student loans, as well as RealJobs RI industry partnerships and CS training offerings.
We’re all in this together. TechHire RI is a collaboration with Governor Raimondo, Rhode Island state agencies, local businesses, educational institutions and other nonprofits including ApprenticeshipRI, LaunchCode, SENEDIA, Tech Collective, URI, and many others. My team is based in Providence and works for Opportunity@Work, a national nonprofit group based in Washington, DC, that co-designed and and is co-creating TechHire Rhode Island.
PBN: On Wednesday, President Obama announced an expansion of the Tech Hire initiative to make sure more Americans are trained to fill technology jobs – how will that affect Rhode Island?
EWENS: Rhode Island was designated as a White House TechHire community in the summer of 2015. Because of Governor Raimondo’s leadership and consistent support across Commerce RI and the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, Opportunity@Work has positioned TechHire Rhode Island as its national learning lab, a model for its work with the country’s 50 (and growing) TechHire communities. This allows us to build on the great work already happening on the ground more cohesively, and bring in best-in-class coding bootcamps, assessments and partnerships here in Rhode Island, and share our learnings and strategies both in the state and throughout TechHire communities across the country. Additionally, TechHire is focused on putting R.I. companies in the driver seat for shaping this tech talent pipeline – in other words, really seeking out, listening to, and engaging our employers to help grow, strengthen and keep tech talent in the Ocean State.
PBN: Are there a lot of tech and IT jobs that are going unfilled in RI?
EWENS: Yes! If you go to our site techhire.org you’ll see real-time job openings and skill needs for Rhode Island companies. Today there are 1,571 open IT jobs available to Rhode Islanders requiring top skills of SQL, Java and LINUX. Nationally, there are over 700,000 open IT jobs. IT represents 15 percent of all open jobs and it is a sector that is growing fast, and that pays roughly 50 percent above average salaries. Part of our job is to help companies ‘screen-in’ job candidates (rather than screen out) by hiring based on ability, not pedigree. If you can do the job, you deserve the job.
PBN: What sort of training programs will be offered here?
EWENS: Starting on May 9, our partners at LaunchCode and URI are offering CS50x, a free, world-class course which is an in-person version of Harvard’s Introduction to Computer Science class offered on the edX platform. It is 14 weeks long and is first come, first-served (there is a math and logic assessment to identify candidates likely to succeed). You can register today HERE.
Additionally, we are in the process of bringing leading coding bootcamps like Flatiron’s LEARN platform to Rhode Island. Flatiron is one of the country’s only coding bootcamps that has published an independently verified 99 percent job placement rate for individuals that finish the training.
Tech Collective’s
TechForce initiative provides customized, industry-led tech training to eligible Rhode Island career seekers.
PBN: What interested you in leading Tech Hire?
EWENS: My career has been focused on building better learning systems to help more people earn a living by being themselves. The Information Technology jobs market is the perfect place to make the biggest impact toward this goal for several reasons. For one, IT jobs represent 15 percent of open jobs, the tech industry is growing fast and tech jobs pay 50 percent above average salaries. Additionally, IT jobs are in all industries and regions and more jobs are becoming ‘IT jobs’ every year. So there is a ton of opportunity. Secondly, there is a growing number of good ways, like the coding bootcamps, to learn IT rapidly and to assess mastery. Along with new financing models we are helping to develop, this increases access to more people. This is important because huge swaths of our communities, especially women and communities of color, are drastically under-represented in technology and they represent big unrealized value and opportunity for our companies. Increasing access to opportunity has been my life’s work and is what TechHire Rhode Island is all about.
