With this upcoming opportunity, Rio Grande Valley students will be able to gain key digital and workforce skills that will help them build their budding careers.
This week, UTRGV and South Texas College announced their participation in the Grow with Google Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Career Readiness Program.
The initiative aims to help Latino students at more than 20 HSIs prepare for the workforce through digital skills training and career workshops.
Through a $2 million investment in the Hispanic Association of Community Colleges and Universities (HACU), the program will train 200,000 Latino students by 2025.
HACU was founded in 1986 and represents more than 500 colleges and universities in the United States, Latin America, Spain and school districts throughout the U.S.
In partnership with HACU, the Grow with Google HSI Career Readiness Program will provide HSI career centers with funding and a semester-long in-person and online digital skills program.
UTRGV Career Center Director Kamara Jackson said UTRGV is excited to partner with Google’s career readiness initiative.
“With the tremendous focus on preparing and empowering our students to be competitive, the addition of these digital skills helps to solidify our efforts to influence UTRGV students to have even more of a global presence and impact,” Jackson added.
The initiative will combine career workshops and career counseling, as well as programming on design thinking, project management and professional brand building.
Participating schools will also create additional material tailored to student needs.
“Ensuring our students have access to career-ready tools is critical for our workforce,” Congressman Vicente Gonzalez said. “The Google Career Readiness program will help connect students at South Texas College and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and beyond to resources that will help them achieve at their highest levels, and better prepare them to thrive in our growing economy.”
According to a Google press release, Latino workers face systemic barriers to economic opportunity, such as a lack of access to digital skills training.
Grow with Google was created in 2017 to help combat this by helping communities grow their skills, careers and businesses.
Ana Corrales, Google’s devices and services’ chief operating officer, said Google is proud to work with leading Latino-serving organizations to advance access to digital skills and workforce training in the Latino community.
“Together with organizations like the Hispanic Association of Community Colleges and Universities, we aim to help bridge wealth and opportunity gaps in the Latino community, so that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in today’s digital economy,” Corrales added.
As part of Google’s plan to help open doors to higher-paying jobs for Latinos, Google will also provide $5 million in grants to three Latino-serving workforce organizations — UnidosUS, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Hispanic Federation.
The grants aim to help workers’ upskill for in-demand jobs while providing support.
“This program breaks systemic barriers to entry into the tech industry and offers our members and our communities in Illinois, Texas and California the unique opportunity to up-skill, re-skill and earn certificates that will allow them to earn a good living in the tech economy, uplifting entire families,” LULAC CEO Sindy Benavides said. “We look forward to partnering with the Google Foundation in the future and expanding this program to even more communities.”
