Adobe Inc. is giving Bowie State University $1 million as part of its new Adobe Anchor School Program designed to prepare Black and Hispanic students for future careers in the tech industry.
Adobe selected Bowie State, Maryland’s oldest historically Black university, as one of the program’s inaugural members. Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) wants to partner with more HBCUs and Hispanic-serving institutions to expand the program’s reach, the company announced Tuesday.
After Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) chose Arlington for its second headquarters, teeing up tens of thousands of job openings over the next decade, a slew of Greater Washington’s higher education institutions rushed to build out their tech education curriculums and workforce development to supplement the industry’s need for talent.
Since then, a wave of funding has flowed into those institutions, particularly HBCUs, to fill an even bigger gap in Greater Washington’s tech workforce: people of color and women. In June, both Google and Apple donated millions to Howard University for tech education and workforce development. In August, the D.C. Council designated $17.8 million to expand the University of the District of Columbia’s degree programs for highly skilled tech workers.
Adobe's funding for the Prince George's County university is dedicated for tech education, digital literacy resources and internship opportunities, and the two partners will work together to determine more specifically how the funding will be used.
“This new partnership with Adobe will enable Bowie State to amplify the work we’ve already begun,” Bowie State president Aminta Breaux said in a statement. “We applaud Adobe for providing training, internships and digital tools for diverse students to develop the skills that will position them to bring new perspectives into technology companies.”
Two other universities were selected as inaugural partners and also received $1 million each from Adobe: Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and San José State University in San Jose, California.
