Louisville-based Dataseam announced grants from both the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to provide over $2 million in advanced instructional computing to participating Eastern Kentucky schools.
The funding is part of the expansion of USDOL-sponsored Registered Apprenticeships in information technology for students in grades 11 and 12, according to a news release.
“We are excited about these opportunities for our Dataseam districts,” said Dataseam Chief Executive Officer Brian Gupton in the release. “This investment helps move the needle for one of the most economically distressed parts of the United States.
“This agreement with the USDOL makes the second federal contract we have earned and directly executed to carry out Registered Apprenticeship in partnership with our participating schools. These awards signify further validation of the Dataseam model for education and workforce development in Kentucky.”
Both the USDOL Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities (WORC) grant and the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative award from the ARC support Registered Apprenticeships in information technology for participating high school juniors and seniors. The two-year competency-based program provides coursework, on-job training and mentorship as part of paid employment in the pursuit of a DOL Journeyworker certification like other skilled trades.
Graduates will leave the program with the requisite skills and two years of practical experience which will help to address vital IT sector demands in education, banking, health care and state and local government, the release states. The opportunities reflect the availability of meaningful, family-sustaining employment without the associated costs of a two- or four-year degree.
Participating schools will receive Apple iMac workstations to address advanced curriculum needs. Apprentice candidates receive MacBook Pro laptops to engage in coursework and to support the enterprise-level demands of the K-12 technology environment. Upon completion of the Registered Apprenticeship program, the Journeyworker graduates will retain the laptops to take into the workforce or to complete further information technology training at the university level.
“While a great deal of overall K-12 basic student technology access has shifted to mobility met with lower-end machines, it is a function of cost and not necessarily form,” said Superintendent Tim Melton, Williamsburg Independent Schools, in the release. “Kentucky schools still need instructional devices with the ability to do academic heavy lifting like pre-engineering and the media arts.
"These devices provide the environments to engage in state-mandated standardized testing in a controlled and uniform fashion. Our participation in the variety of workforce initiatives Dataseam provides allows us to upskill our Eastern Kentucky workforce and bring related technology we need with local investments at a fraction of the cost."
The computers funded by the DOL and the ARC bring advanced curriculum opportunities for schools but also comprise an important part of a statewide computing grid built and maintained by Dataseam, the release continued.
The DataseamGrid, unique to Kentucky, was developed to service the structure-based drug design demands of the University of Louisville Brown Cancer Center and provided 24/7 access for as much as 80% of the overall computing capacity to create safer and more effective cancer therapeutics at a fraction of the time and cost. Initially funded by the Kentucky General Assembly in 2005, it is vital to saving lives and creating economic opportunities for the Commonwealth, the release said.
With the DataseamGrid, Kentucky is more competitive for federal funding with over $65 million earned to date creating a $162.5 million economic impact for Kentucky.
As I previously reported, Dataseam received $1.5 million to further expand its U.S. Department of Labor-approved Registered Apprenticeship in Information Technology program for high school students in the Eastern Kentucky region in 2020.
