TechHire Eastern Kentucky Launches Fast-Track IT Training Program September 2016

On September 6, the first cohort of TechHire Eastern Kentucky (TEKY) interns began a 33-week work-based learning internship to gain the skills they need to land information technology jobs. Selected from a pool of 850 applicants from across eastern Kentucky, the 49 interns are participating in an immersive curriculum developed by Eleven Fifty Academy of Indianapolis and taught by Interapt, a technology firm based in Louisville that will offer full-time employment to those who successfully complete the TEKY training program.

Designed to put eastern Kentucky workers on a fast track to gaining the skills needed for IT jobs, TEKY is a public-private partnership between the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), Interapt, and ARC. In August 2016, it was awarded $2.75 million through the Obama administration's POWER Initiative to provide technology workforce development that will help build eastern Kentucky’s tech ecosystem, creating jobs and boosting emerging sectors that rely on a skilled IT workforce. The TEKY internship program will train an estimated 200 technology professionals over the next three years.

In 2015, eastern Kentucky was identified through the administration’s TechHire Initiative as a community committed to creating jobs and opportunity in the technology industry. Since then, about 300 tech jobs have been created in the region, with an estimated $6 million impact on the local economy.

Learn more about the TEKY internship program in its September 6 launch video: