With $5.3M, DC and Maryland orgs aim to further develop the tech pipeline

JPMorgan Chase recently put $5.3 million into two local organizations to encourage young people in underserved communities to pursue careers in high-demand industries such as tech and healthcare.

The Greater Washington Partnership and Education Strategy Group will use the investment to expand their TalentReady initiative, which connects students with internships and work experience outside of the classroom.

“The Mid-Atlantic region has incredible STEM career opportunities in some of the world’s most in-demand technical fields,” said Kathy Warden, the Greater Washington Partnership’s Board Chair and CEO of Northrop Grumman, in an announcement. “Enriching our STEM workforce across the entire talent pipeline strengthens America’s technological leadership edge.”

To track demand-side data, Greater Washington Partnership uses a tool called the Employee Signaling System for insights on employment levels, annual growth and entry-level job postings for well-paying industries in the DMV area.

Education Strategy Group CEO Matt Gandal said that the organization looked at disaggregated data of particular zip codes and high schools to see which ones lacked the proper resources to develop tech pipelines. Unsurprisingly, many low-income schools did not have programs to connect students to the technical workforce, especially compared to schools in high-income neighborhoods.

“We’re just a facilitator. It’s the schools, the school systems, their counselors, their teachers,” said Gandal. “They’re going out, putting all the weight on the counselors and peer advisors.”

An announcement said that the program has supported over 25,000 students since its launch in 2019. These students have come from such jurisdictions as DC; Baltimore City, Prince George’s County and Montgomery County in Maryland; and Fairfax County in Virginia.

“In the next phase, additional effort will be made to help ensure students get work-based learning experiences such as capstone projects and internships,” the announcement said.

The TalentReady program partners with organizations like Houston, Texas-HQed Genesys Works, which directly engages with students in schools and builds programs to provide them with skills training, paid internships and college coaching.

Gabriel Aquino was in his high school class when a representative from Genesys Works came in to speak about opportunities. He decided to apply to the program and got accepted. Aquino then attended a nine-week training program with Genesys Works to learn workplace readiness and technical skills, including operating Microsoft 365 and using virtual desktops.

After performing well in the training program, Aquino received an internship with healthcare access-focused company Surescripts. There, he worked as a service desk analyst, creating tickets and providing tech support for people who called with system issues.

Now, Aquino is planning to go to college next year and hopes to become a software developer. He’s already been teaching himself coding languages that could help him land a tech sector job.

“I want to be in the tech field, but my parents are on the completely opposite side. It’s hard, but with these resources, I’ll be good,” Aquino said. “I’ve been prepping, and I’ve been learning all these different types of coding languages in my own free time. Lately, I’ve been working with AI using Python. I have a little software that can identify objects within pictures, videos, and even your camera.”

Aquino recently attended a roundtable on TalentReady, where he met with business executives and government leaders — including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“During the event, I was blanking out because I was so nervous,” Aquino said. “He [Youngkin] is so tall.”

Aquino also spoke about how doing the internship before college gave him a head start on a challenging technical field.

The TalentReady program involves a heavy amount of public and private partnerships, said Carolyn Evert, a media representative for JPMorgan Chase. Outside of working with Youngkin, the partners also solicited the support of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

“By fostering partnerships between our top-ranked education institutions and Virginia’s most critical employers, we are preparing our young people to graduate workforce and college ready,” Youngkin said in an announcement.