Fire Awards: Winner - Fire starters/community builders
Access Point, a nonprofit organization created in 2021 by St. Louis-based IT firm Daugherty Business Solutions, seeks to help students from underrepresented communities begin careers in software development. It said it expects this year’s iteration of the program to include more than 150 students, up from 15 in the first cohort of the program. Access Point said the program is also charting expansion into other states outside Missouri, including Minnesota, New Jersey and Georgia. Maurice Mahone, national program director for Access Point, answered questions about the organization's growth.
What was your organization’s biggest achievement in the past year? Proving that we could replicate the success of the pilot at a larger scale and witnessing the impact the program has on reducing the wealth gap for students of color and women. We have a great team and there is a lot to be proud of.
Several major employers – Edward Jones, Mastercard, Ameren and more – have hired Access Point graduates. How have you been able to successfully engage those employers and have them hire Access Point students? I think the success comes from partnering with them from day one and sharing the journey and progress of the entire cohort. We keep employers involved and engaged in activities that allow them to get to know the apprentices. We frequently meet with employers and share assessment reports to show how the students' technical and professional skills are progressing toward readiness for employment. Honestly, by the time we begin the matching process the employers have had enough interaction with the students and they will try to request apprentices by name. In two years and across five employer partners, there are 40 Access Point graduates in full-time IT roles making competitive salaries. Our employer partners are critical to sustaining the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) ecosystem.
Access Point says it provides HyperCare and HyperCoaching to its students. What does that involve? HyperCare and HyperCoaching are two of the major differentiators for Access Point. It involves being able to quickly provide support, support services, and solutions when a student hits a life-event (e.g., lack of food, shelter, health services, etc.) that is beyond their ability and resources to fix. Some of our students are dealing with challenging environments away from school and they encounter life events that might easily derail their progress and defer their dreams. When this happens to an Access Point apprentice, HyperCare and HyperCoaching kick-in. We provide students with the appropriate level of support and access to services and help them manage the life event so they can stay in the apprenticeship and remain employed. HyperCare and HyperCoaching are components critical to the success of Access Point.
Access Point was awarded a $1 million contract with the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development. What will that contract entail? We were excited to have demonstrated the results that allowed our state legislators to allocate funds to Access Point in the state budget. Recently, we received another allocation in the new budget from Gov. Mike Parson. The grant allows us to continue to provide HyperCare and HyperCoaching services to the students.
Access Point is growing into additional states. What does its expansion strategy outside Missouri look like? The expansion strategy consists of constructing a sustainable STEM ecosystem for Access Point in markets where Daugherty has offices. This involves building trusted and collaborative relationships at the local level with K-12 and higher-ed leaders and administrators. This also means cultivating relationships with community service organizations like United Way and Urban League, and with business partners who commit to reserving full-time roles for Access Point graduates. These are the components that make up the ecosystem that supports the Access Point program and the apprentices. We have executed the strategy in Minneapolis and have established a new and maturing STEM Ecosystem for Access Point. The pilot for the first cohort begins in September 2023. New Jersey and Atlanta are next on our strategic roadmap.
Why is a program like Access Point important for St. Louis to have in its technology community? I share the vision of others in our technical community when it comes to making St. Louis the Tech Hub of the Midwest. One of the ways to do that is to keep our technology talent in St. Louis instead of them moving away and taking their ideas and innovation elsewhere. Access Point is also contributing to changing how IT looks in St. Louis. The program is adding more people of color and women into the IT pipeline which should have a positive long-range effect on the makeup of IT leadership teams and C-suite IT executives in the future.
What is Access Point’s top goal for the next year? Our biggest goal for next year is to get the next cohort into full-time IT roles. Success is measured by results and our goal is to continue to bring equity sooner to underrepresented youth and help them sustain their careers in IT.
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