Lamont announces grant funding for tech programs at colleges and universities

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Jul. 18—HARTFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont announced the creation of seven new technology education programs at Connecticut's public and private colleges and universities on Friday.

Lamont said these programs will help give students the skills they need to be successful in the tech sector.

"Bringing our educators to the same table as our businesses has been a priority of our administration since day one," Lamont said in a press release. "Having businesses articulate what types of skills they need and working with Connecticut's best educational institutions to create new programs that put people in high- quality careers is how we are building a nation- leading workforce."

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) and the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), in partnership with the Connecticut Office of Workforce Strategy and the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development awarded grants to seven business- higher education partnerships in Connecticut as part of an initiative to rapidly increase the competitiveness of the state's postsecondary institutions and meet growing businesses' demands for tech skills.

The initiative Tech Talent Accelerator was funded by the Connecticut Tech Talent Fund and administered by the Connecticut Department of Community and Economic Development.

The purpose of this initiative is to close the technological skills gap by fostering targeted, high- performing partnerships between businesses and higher education in emerging, high- demand tech skills in areas such as cybersecurity, virtual modeling, software development and digital analytics critical to business growth in the state.

The seven Tech Talent Accelerator grantees are Quinnipiac University, University of Bridgeport, Mitchell College, University of Hartford, University of New Haven, University of Saint Joseph as well as the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities ( CSCU) system.

Each of the six independent colleges and universities are receiving $ 30,000 each and the CSCU system is receiving $80,000. The resources support 12 to 18 months of work.

The CSCU system includes four state universities, 12 community colleges and Charter Oak State College, which is an online college. Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic is one of the state colleges that is part of the system.

Quinnipiac University will use its grant funding to launch an advanced cybersecurity badging program tailored to industry partners in healthcare, finance and tech in central and southern Connecticut.

The University of Bridgeport will use its funding to provide a new 12-week course in cybersecurity and information security tailored to businesses in Southwest Connecticut's finance and tech sectors.

Mitchell College will develop an accelerated pathway for cybersecurity skills tailored to the advanced manufacturing and defense sector with its grant funding.

With its grant funding, the University of Hartford will launch an accelerated software development course for mobile apps tailored to major businesses in the greater Hartford area.

The University of New Haven will use the grant funding to develop an embedded game design and simulation development program while the University of Saint Joseph will develop a degree concentration in data analytics tailored to the regional needs of Greater Hartford employees.

The CSCU system will use its grant funding to launch a dedicated community of practice to collaborate with businesses through the Capital Area Tech Partnership and the Southwest Connecticut Tech Partnership.

CSCU faculty from two and four- year institutions will directly work with each partnership to analyze jobs and skills, demand data and

ECSU, Page 4