Borough President Oddo, Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, Amazon, Staten Island Foundation Help Bring Nationally-Recognized Tech Trainer Per Scholas to Staten Island

Staten Island, N.Y. (May 25, 2021) – For more than 25 years, Per Scholas has advanced economic equity through technology and today, Staten Island Borough President James Oddo is proud to announce a transformational investment in the nonprofit’s ability to offer free IT training exclusively to Staten Island residents. Through collaboration and the commitment of Borough Hall, the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, The Staten Island Foundation, and Amazon, Per Scholas is now able to enroll and support more learners from the Borough in virtual courses today and through a Staten Island satellite campus partner in the near future.

“In 2017, our Borough Hall team read study after study on how to prepare the workforce for long-term success in the 21^st century economy,” said Borough President James Oddo. “That’s when we were first introduced to Per Scholas, an organization that achieved incredible outcomes in training individuals for successful careers in the tech sector.”

The Borough President continued, “As we often do, with our Policy Director Isaac Gorodetski leading point for us, we joined forces with Linda Baran and her team at the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce to find a way to bring Per Scholas programming to Staten Island. Therefore, I am thrilled that Per Scholas, The Staten Island Foundation, and Amazon rallied around us to make it a reality. Thanks to their hard work, philanthropy, and commitment to our borough, Staten Islanders will now have access to world-class tech training and job placement. And, it couldn’t come at a more critical time given the impact of the pandemic on the job market. This is a big win for Staten Island.”

According to a new report from the Center for an Urban Future, nearly one-in-five of all new job postings in New York City during the pandemic were in technology occupations. Demand for tech jobs across the city was more than double that of finance, more than triple that of marketing, and almost five times higher than demand for hospitality or education. As of February, Staten Island’s unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, and almost half are young professionals, aged 22 to 34.

“The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce is proud and excited to welcome Per Scholas to Staten Island,” said Linda Baran, President and CEO of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce. “Per Scholas has a proven track record of lifting Americans with lower incomes into high paying jobs that made them a natural partnership fit for the Chamber’s workforce initiatives. We are confident that this new partnership will help create a new tech talent pipeline on Staten Island that will serve a diverse and underrepresented population. And this is just the first step: the more pipelines we create, the more we attract and drive new tech businesses to our Borough. We thank the Office of Borough President James Oddo, Amazon and The Staten Island Foundation for joining us in support of the future of Staten Island’s workforce.”

“Creating a better, stronger, more resilient future for Staten Islanders, particularly the least advantaged is a leading priority for The Staten Island Foundation. Our investment in Per Scholas contributes to that more promising future. We’re enthusiastic about helping to provide another tool for Staten Island residents to invest in themselves,” said Laura Jean Watters, Acting Executive Director, The Staten Island Foundation.

“As a company, we’ve made upskilling and workforce development a priority here, in New York City, and nationally, so partnering with Per Scholas is a natural fit for Amazon,” said Carley Graham Garcia, Amazon’s New York City Head of External Affairs. “By expanding educational and job training opportunities in Staten Island, this initiative will help more of our neighbors pursue promising careers, while simultaneously building a talent pipeline and attracting greater economic investment to the borough. We thank the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce and Borough President James Oddo for all their work to make this expansion possible.”

Amazon currently employs 5,000 employees across its Staten Island operations sites.

To date, Per Scholas has trained a dozen Staten Islanders, and geography has been the main barrier to interested individuals in pursuing a path in tech. As a result of this new partnership, that barrier will be removed. Mario, a Per Scholas graduate from Staten Island shared his gratitude for having a car, but underscored he still had to begin his commute at 6 a.m. to make it on time to his training in Brooklyn. “Some classmates took three or four busses plus the ferry to get to class,” he reflected. Today, Mario works as a Cyber Technology Specialist with Darktrace.

“As New York City continues our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a responsibility to ensure that Per Scholas training can reach as many New Yorkers as possible,” said Abe Mendez, New York Managing Director, Per Scholas. “I want to commend Borough President Oddo and all of our partners at Amazon, the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, and The Staten Island Foundation. Together we will ensure that technology companies across our city can benefit from the strength of Staten Island talent.”

Per Scholas is actively recruiting candidates for virtual training courses this summer and is striving to return to on-campus learning this fall, provided it’s safe to do so. In Staten Island, this means teaming up with a community partner to stream live classes from Per Scholas’s flagship Bronx and Brooklyn campuses. Per Scholas will provide an Instructional Assistant to be present in the classroom to support Staten Island learners real-time. Current Per Scholas cybersecurity learner Unais says it best, “Opening up more training opportunities in Staten Island will be a lifesaver.”

To learn more, please visit PerScholas.org/NewYork.

About Staten Island Borough President

The Office of the Borough President has a responsibility to advocate for the entire Borough of Staten Island and all its residents, and represents the Borough’s interests within City government. The Borough President communicates directly with the Mayor and the City Council to emphasize Staten Island’s budget priorities, and monitors the delivery of city services on Staten Island, acting as a liaison between residents and city agencies when problems arise to devise solutions. In addition, the Borough President is responsible for reviewing major land use decisions and proposing sites for city facilities within the Borough. The office also houses the Borough’s Topographical Bureau, which maintains the borough’s official maps and assigns street addresses. The Borough President is also responsible for appointing one member to the Panel for Educational Policy and one member to the City Planning Commission, as well as some 150 members to Staten Island’s three community boards.

About Staten Island Chamber of Commerce

Founded in 1895, the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce (SICC) is Staten Island’s largest and most respected business organization. The mission of the SICC, a private not-for-profit 501(c)6 organization, is to improve the economic climate and expand business opportunities on Staten Island. We represent the interests and serve as the voice of more than 9,000 businesses of all sizes and sectors throughout all four shores of the borough. With nearly 600 members encompassing 250 categories, Chamber members range from small, family-owned storefront shops to leading institutions to larger employers. The vast majority of our members are small companies with fewer than 10 employees. The SICC provides technical assistance, advice, and business support services. The Chamber also produces workshops (online and onsite) and one-on-one counseling and customized on- and off-site assistance to business owners, with an emphasis on women and minority businesses.

In 2000, the SICC established the SICC Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)3. The mission of the SICCF is to support and advance small business development & business technology development of the Staten Island community through charitable educational programs and commercial revitalization programs that lessen the burdens of government.

About The Staten Island Foundation

The Staten Island Foundation is an independent, private foundation with a mission of improving the quality of life in Staten Island through support of qualified, service-providing, not-for-profit organizations. The Staten Island Foundation funds results for the local community, especially its least advantaged, in the areas of education, health, community services and the arts. Since its founding in 1997, The Staten Island Foundation has granted over $75 million to local, service-providing organizations for the benefit of Staten Island residents. For information call (718) 697-2831 or visit the Foundation’s website at www.thestatenislandfoundation.org.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

About Per Scholas

Per Scholas is a national organization that has been advancing economic mobility for 25 years. Through rigorous training, professional development, and robust employer connections, we prepare individuals traditionally underrepresented in technology for high-growth careers in the industry. We partner with leading employers to build more diverse talent pools, directly connecting our graduates to new career opportunities at businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to innovative startups. With campuses in 17 cities, Per Scholas has trained more than 13,000 individuals in tech skills, building bridges to careers in technology. To learn more, visit PerScholas.org.

MEDIA CONTACTS

For Staten Island Borough President James Oddo

Colleen Siuzdak, (718) 816-2057, [email protected]

For Staten Island Chamber of Commerce

Dom Provenzano, (718) 727-1900, [email protected]

For The Staten Island Foundation

Laura Jean Watters, (718) 697-2831, [email protected]

For Per Scholas

Sara Luciano, (332) 895-0051, [email protected]

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As we mark one year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic put tens of millions of Americans out of work, we’re starting to see signs of hope. But while vaccinations and reopenings suggest a return of normalcy, many of our most vulnerable community members risk being left behind. 

Through a generous partnership, Per Scholas and Google.org are working together to bring free immersive tech skills training and Google Career Certificate programming to 3,000+ BIPOC adults. This is a major contribution to Per Scholas’ goal of to propel 13,000+ diverse adults to a thriving wage by 2023.

Currently, for Black and Hispanic workers, the reported jobless rates remain significantly higher than the general population numbers, as they have been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. And for many who were working low-wage jobs across leisure, retail and hospitality sectors, these jobs are not expected to come back. Meanwhile, demand for tech talent continues to rise, and employers across industries are paying a  renewed focus on filling open roles with diverse talent, including individuals from nontraditional educational backgrounds. 

Per Scholas and Google.org are providing individuals traditionally underrepresented in technology with the skills they need to meet these current labor demands, while working to ensure all alumni achieve a true thriving wage – enough to save money for retirement, invest in children’s education, or own a home – within two years of graduation. Through this grant, Google.org is providing free access for learners to its array of Google Career Certificates to 2,000+ Per Scholas alums [ register for IT Automation with Python today].

This work also encompasses support for Per Scholas’ Diverse by Design – which provides corporate leaders with the training and resources they need to recruit, retain, and cultivate diverse talent. Through solutions-driven conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion within tech, DxD produces meaningful content that empowers C-suite leaders to make valuable and socially impactful business decisions, and provides access to sophisticated customized training and talent sourcing solutions.

Google’s own Stephanie LeBlanc-Godfrey, Global Head of Inclusion for Women of Color, recently participated in a Diverse by Design panel discussion, hosted by Per Scholas, titled the 140K: Women and the Pandemic in which we explored the unique challenges that COVID-19 has presented for women and the solutions tech companies are employing to address them.  Stephanie emphasized that, “It is our responsibility to make tech careers more accessible to women, and one clear solution to significantly accelerate that opportunity for women is through organizations like Per Scholas, which provide tuition-free tech-training, reducing the barriers of time and financial cost women traditionally face when they are trying to enter the tech industry.  This levels the playing field and makes access to tech career opportunities more equitable.”

This announcement builds on a five-year history with Google.org, which has supported local markets in New York  and Atlanta, and has already awarded Google Career Certificates to more than 1,000 Per Scholas learners who have completed in Google IT Support Professional and Google IT Automation. 

The powerful impact of the Google and Per Scholas tech training partnership comes to life through the experience of our graduates. Curtis Kirksey had been interested in getting into the tech industry for a while, but it wasn’t until he lost his sales job due to the COVID-19 pandemic that he realized it was time to pursue his dream career.  In his words, “the life-altering event” taught him that “mindset is crucial to one’s well-being,” and once he realized that, he began working on himself.  

Curtis enrolled in Per Scholas’ Network Support training program and, although attending a full-time remote class was extremely challenging, he managed to earn his CompTIA A+, CompTIA Net+, and Google IT Support certifications AND graduated as class Valedictorian. 

Curtis was in such high demand that he had several job offers when he graduated. He is currently employed full-time in the tech industry, earning significantly more than he did in his previous role in sales.

“Your opportunities are endless when it comes to this type of industry,” Curtis told WSB-TV Atlanta in a recent interview about his experience. He hopes to one day be chosen to work at the new Google site in Atlanta. “That would be a dream job to work for Google, and to know they are right here in my backyard,” Curtis said. “It gives me hope.”

Google.org’s support is helping propel students like Curtis to successful careers with thriving wages, while also helping Per Scholas advance racial and economic equity in the tech workforce, and create high-quality career pathways opportunities for thousands of diverse individuals who might otherwise never have been able to access them. 

An instructor with one of our learners, exploring the internal workings of a computer (pre-Covid).

Tuition-free training to help expand and diversify regional talent pipelines in support of city’s growing tech ecosystem

Pittsburgh, PA – Today, national tech training nonprofit Per Scholas and full-stack technology services provider TEKsystems announced the expansion of their transformative partnership to Pittsburgh beginning March 15, 2021. With successful training programs already underway in Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, the expanded partnership will enable Per Scholas and TEKsystems to provide local workers with no-cost technology training and bring diverse talent into tech careers in the city’s fast-growing tech sector.

With the support of InnovatePGH, Partner4Work, and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance (the economic development affiliate of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development), Per Scholas will train 30 full stack Java developers in the first Pittsburgh cohort of students. The training model is expected to deliver an 80% graduation rate, with learners achieving upward mobility and family-sustaining wages post-graduation. The program will also provide regional employers with diverse, underrepresented tech talent to meet changing business demands.

“Developing a more inclusive, job-ready workforce through tech training has always been one of our top priorities and our ability to partner with like-minded organizations is what has enabled us to create these opportunities in communities across the country,” said Per Scholas President & CEO Plinio Ayala. “With the generous support of our customized training partner, TEKsystems, we’re now able to expand into the burgeoning tech community of Pittsburgh, offering our tuition free courses, full suite of professional services, and extensive alumni support network to individuals who have been traditionally underrepresented in the tech field. We look forward to supporting our learners and Pittsburgh’s growing tech economy.” 

A hiring and training partner since 2013, TEKsystems has hired more than 400 Per Scholas graduates to date. In collaboration with Per Scholas will train at least 540 people for cutting-edge tech jobs by 2022.

Per Scholas has limited spaces remaining for its March training cohort and is currently accepting applications through the end of February.  A high school diploma or GED equivalent is the only qualification required to apply.  Interested candidates can learn more here.

The TD Ready Challenge awarded Per Scholas to deliver Tech Training to those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic

New York, NY – January 27, 2020 – Today, national tech training nonprofit Per Scholas has been named one of six U.S. winners of the 2020 TD Ready Challenge presented by TD Bank. Through this initiative, Per Scholas will provide its vast network of alumni – particularly those negatively impacted by COVID-19 – with upskilling, reskilling, and professional development opportunities to help them advance in successful tech careers. The programming will be provided to alumni in Baltimore, Greater Boston, the National Capital Region NCR), Newark, New York, and Philadelphia.

“Per Scholas has brought forward a creative and scalable solution to help those disproportionately impacted by the effects of COVID-19 prepare for the current workforce,” said Andy Bregenzer, Regional President, Metro New York, TD Bank. “Being a winner of the TD Ready Challenge is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators, as well as their dedication to ensuring our communities emerge from the pandemic more resilient, inclusive, vibrant and ready for the continually changing future.”

The TD Ready Challenge is an annual initiative, laddering up to the TD Ready Commitment, TD’s corporate citizenship platform, aimed at opening doors to a more inclusive and sustainable tomorrow. Acting as a springboard for social innovation, TD established the TD Ready Challenge to identify and support scalable solutions that address societal issues identified within the four drivers of the TD Ready Commitment: Financial Security, Vibrant Planet, Connected Communities and Better Health. 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on society and that’s why the 2020 TD Ready Challenge encouraged organizations across TD’s North American footprint to create innovative solutions to help create accelerated, sustained and equitable recovery in the face of COVID-19. 

“For over 25 years, Per Scholas has been committed to helping our learners break the cycle of poverty and launch stable, family-sustaining careers in the technology sector,” said Plinio Ayala, President and CEO of Per Scholas. “We’re able to do this by providing innovative solutions to systemic issues of equity and opportunity in the tech field and offering tuition-free training and career development services to individuals who are traditionally underrepresented in today’s most promising fields. However, we cannot do this work without the incredible support of organizations like TD Bank, which is why we could not be more grateful for this award from the TD Ready Challenge.”

In total, TD awarded $10 million (CAD) for the 2020 Challenge, as part of the $25 million (CAD) that TD has allocated to help strengthen community resilience and COVID-19 recovery through the TD Community Resilience Initiative.

 A full list of The Ready Challenge winners as well as more information about the challenge can be found at www.td.com/thereadychallenge. 

About Per Scholas

Per Scholas is a national organization that has been advancing economic mobility for 25 years. Through rigorous training, professional development, and robust employer connections, we prepare individuals traditionally underrepresented in technology for high-growth careers in the industry. We partner with leading employers to build more diverse talent pools, directly connecting our graduates to new career opportunities at businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to innovative startups. With campuses in 14 cities, Per Scholas has trained more than 12,000 individuals in tech skills, building bridges to careers in technology. To learn more, visit perscholas.org.

About the TD Ready Commitment

TD has a long-standing commitment to enriching the lives of its customers, colleagues and communities. As part of its corporate citizenship platform, the TD Ready Commitment, TD is targeting CAD $1 billion (U.S. $775 million) in total by 2030 towards community giving in four areas critical to opening doors for a more inclusive and sustainable tomorrow – Financial Security, Vibrant Planet, Connected Communities and Better Health. Through the TD Ready Commitment, TD aspires to link its business, philanthropy and human capital to help people feel more confident – not just about their finances, but also in their ability to achieve their personal goals in a changing world. For further information, visit td.com/tdreadycommitment.