Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A group of local employers in Western New York are teaming up to launch a program that's looking to develop and attract technology talent for their companies.
Employers such as ACV Auctions, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York, M&T Bank, Moog and Rich Products are investing in the region's first Data Analytics Bootcamp, which is a free training program that will empower community members to learn in-demand skills that lead to tech jobs.
"We had recognized that there was definitely a workforce challenge in Buffalo and in Western New York," said Senior Manager of M&T Bank's Tech Academy, Kelly Martin on Wednesday. "We came together as a community of employers to help to co-create and understand how to solve that challenge, while also uplifting our community."
Brayton J. Wilson - WBEN
This push made by local companies to develop homegrown talent is geared towards accelerating regional job growth by expanding the skilled labor force — a need frequently cited as critical to future job creation and economic expansion.
"It's a challenge we all share," said Chief Information Officer of Moog, Kevin Ruggiero on Wednesday. "There's a shortage [of technical talent] across the globe, and it's important to the community and important to the region that we have a strong digital workforce, and people who can join any one of our companies and help us advance. Each of these companies coming together and working together on this new program to create new pipelines of talent to identify people who have the skills or capability to work in tech, but maybe never saw themselves having a career in technology. [This will] give them the education and the opportunity to start a new career in technology and join one of our companies. It's a really great thing."
"I think it's an amazing opportunity," said Director of Information Systems of Rich Products, Jon Zirnheld. "Working together, being collaborative to build up our Western New York community instead of being competitors. There's such a demand for technology talent in this area that instead of fighting over the same technology talent pool, we're actually working together to broaden that pool and support our community, in conjunction."
This program is focused on expanding access to skills training among disadvantaged communities. The companies that have partnered for this bootcamp want to eliminate barriers to ensure the program is accessible to anyone interested in a career in technology.
"This is our pilot that we'll be launching next week," Martin said. "We are committed to creating an inclusive environment and inclusive pathways for our community members to enter technology jobs. We view this as being expansive, and we're looking to scale this over time."
Brayton J. Wilson - WBEN
All the costs will be covered by the sponsoring employers, which means the 21 people participating in the program are training for free. No technical experience or college education is required to participate, and students will receive a stipend to cover living expenses during the program.
Over the next 12 weeks, the Data Analytics Bootcamp will provide hands-on training in data collection, analysis and visualization. Students learn how to transform data into compelling stories and actionable insights to help organizations make data-informed decisions — which is a skill set in high demand regionally and nationally.
"It will be a really immersive programs and experience for the student cohort," Martin said. "It just brings to life that experience for our student cohort after a pretty long environment that we're living in."
Upon graduation, participants will immediately become job candidates for available data analyst positions with many of the tech employers supporting the program.
At first, this program will focus on the technological basis to help train people to get into the workforce and land quality jobs. From there, it should help these candidates then potentially go further in the field, and possibly expand their horizons.
"The Tech Academy has big ambitions," Zirnheld said. "We're starting with data and analytics as our first skill set that we're going after, and we intend to broaden it out to other technology focused skills. But these tech skills are going to be marketable across multiple industries, and not just pure technology-focused companies."
"We're going to really focus these students giving a full-time experience, getting training as fast as we can, and when they graduate in April, I think we're going to have a lot of great candidates be ready to interview with the companies sponsoring the event and other companies in Western New York."
As the program goes on over the course of the 12 weeks for the program, the employers involved are really confident that these students will be able to transition into being job-ready and able to contribute on the job right away.
"I'm super excited that we're going to be able to put these 21 students through a really intensive 12-week program not only focused on the hard skills - those technology skills, data analytics skills - but also other skills that will help them jump into their work culture and be able to be successful in their roles," Martin said.
