The chief operating officer of Facebook posts this at her page there after visiting Detroit on Thursday.
By Sheryl Sandberg
By 2024, there will be more than 1 million computing jobs open in the United States. Filling these jobs is critical for our economy and our communities – and the people looking to support their families and have impact.
To help people thrive in the digital world, I'm excited to announce that Facebook is partnering with Grand Circus to launch a digital skills program in Michigan.
Sheryl Sandberg: "Grand Circus is a wonderful example of a local organization working to give its community access to skills that'll help them succeed." (Photos by Grand Circus)
Grand Circus is a tech training school for adults in Detroit that started in 2013. They prepare their students – 40 percent are women and more than 40 percent are people of color – for entry-level developer roles and place them in jobs with local companies. They also run 10-week boot camps on some of the most in-demand programming languages. Ninety-two percent of Grand Circus students go on to get full-time jobs within three months of graduation.
The Grand Circus graduates I met today in Detroit are truly inspiring.
Ellen stopped working for 10 years to raise her kids – the hardest job of all. She had the core skills but needed to catch up on the technology that had changed the workforce. Ellen enrolled in the Grand Circus front-end developer boot camp and is now a project manager at Quicken Loans.
I also got to know Ty, who was delivering pizzas when he turned to Grand Circus for a career change. He’s now an engineer at Rocket Loans, where he told me he feels he has a career where he can grow and contribute.
Grand Circus is a wonderful example of a local organization working to give its community access to skills that'll help them succeed.
Facebook shares that commitment. Over the next two years, we'll work with Grand Circus to train 3,000 Michigan locals, launch new courses – in coding and social media and business marketing – and sponsor boot camps. We’re also partnering with local organizations like Sisters Code to bring more women into software development.
Under the leadership of Gov. Rick Snyder and Mayor Mike Duggan, Detroit is building on the spirit of innovation that has defined the city for so long. We are excited to honor that spirit here in Detroit by helping people get the skills they need to thrive.
Related post today:
Boost from Facebook: Detroit and West Mich. Training for 3,000 Digital Marketing Jobs
