Opportunity@Work Celebrates TechHire Initiative First Anniversary, Hires Director of TechHire

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, the White House
marked the one year anniversary of TechHire with an announcement that 15
new communities are joining the initiative. Last March, President Obama
kicked off TechHire with 21 cities, states, and rural areas nationwide
committing to address the current over 500,000* open information
technology (IT) jobs in the United States. Already, over 600
employers-from HealthPartners, Monsanto, CVS Health, JP Morgan Chase,
Anheuser-Busch, to FedEx-have signed on to the TechHire initiative with
the goal of hiring (or offering paid apprenticeships with the intention
to hire) people on the basis of knowledge, not whether or where they
went to college. The announcement today brings the total number to 50
communities– and their governors, mayors, employers, training
institutions, technology associations, and other civic organizations –
that have signed on to take action to create a better marketplace for
skilled individuals to be placed into IT jobs.

Opportunity@Work,
launched in March 2015 and based at New America, made a commitment to
support the TechHire initiative and to facilitate the successful
implementation and growth of the project. Opportunity@Work is a
not-for-profit organization whose mission is to secure a future of
robust opportunity in which all Americans can learn, pursue and realize
their potential contribution. Opportunity@Work has a vision for a labor
market where those who have the potential to perform a job successfully
have the opportunity to obtain that job.

In the past year,
Opportunity@Work has created a national learning network for all
TechHire communities, their partners, and participating employers and
hosted 19 bi-monthly webinars on which TechHire communities share best
practices and common challenges. The team also launched the site TechHire.org, a resource for current and prospective TechHire partners including civic, private sector, and not-for profit institutions.

Byron
Auguste, Managing Director and Co-founder explained, “TechHire is
emerging as a superior network to connect employers with IT hiring needs
to individuals who possess the skills and motivation to be successful
employees, but whose non-traditional pathways to acquiring those skills
too often render them “invisible” to traditional recruiting processes.”

In order to scale up support for TechHire communities and employers, today Opportunity@Work is releasing version 2.0 of TechHire.org
with new functionality and for the first time, pages for each of the 50
communities. This online platform enables TechHire communities to share
key information on their activities with their own stakeholders and
makes visible the progress and collaborative work underway in each
TechHire community. It will connect employers with quality candidates to
fill their IT jobs through TechHire, shares data on open IT positions,
and provides an opportunity to share progress and exchange best
practices. To increase equity and access, Opportunity@Work also plans to
launch a pay-it-forward financing program to enable low-income
Americans to access high-quality accelerated IT training to get into
well-paying technology jobs.

In addition to celebrating TechHire’s
first anniversary, Opportunity@Work is pleased to announce that it has
hired Tess Posner as its first Director of TechHire. She joins
Opportunity@Work’s growing team that has been working closely with
employers, training providers and community partners to support and grow
TechHire’s impact nationwide. Ms. Posner most recently served as the
Managing Director of the Samaschool in San Francisco. Samaschool was
named one of the 13 most innovative schools in the world by Business
Insider and recognized in TechCrunch, Stanford Social Innovation Review,
Wired and Fast Company.

“TechHire represents an exciting
opportunity to develop long-term shifts in the American labor market;
allowing even more Americans to realize the dream of better paying jobs
to help their families and communities prosper,” said Tess Posner.
“Opportunity@Work is developing a great foundation for this initiative
to achieve success.”

In her role as the Managing Director
of Samaschool, Tess equipped low-income people to find work in the
digital economy. Samaschool’s job training boot camps provided trainees
with in-demand skills, resources and the support they needed to be
successful in digital work and their careers. She grew the program from a
pilot in San Francisco in 2013 to international adoption, now with
eleven diverse locations from New York City to rural Arkansas to East
Africa. In 2015, Tess oversaw Samaschool’s development and launch of an
online training platform, now serving students in 70 countries.

According
to Monique Morrow, CTO of New Frontiers of Development and Engineering
at Cisco, “Tess Posner’s transition from Samaschool Managing Director to
TechHire is natural. Her impact at Samaschool has simply been
phenomenal, expanding beyond the USA to include Kenya and on-line
opportunities.”

Samaschool’s approach to giving
low-income populations 21st century skills to tap into the digital
economy led it to be named one of the “13 most innovative schools in the
world” by Business Insider, featured in TechCrunch, Fast Company and
receive funding from organizations such as the Tipping Point Community,
JPMorgan Chase, the California Endowment and the Robin Hood Foundation.

According
to Opportunity@Work Co-Founder Karan Chopra, “Tess has spent her career
working to increase equity and promote equal opportunity in the
economy. Her passion for ensuring that all people have the chance to
reach their full potential combined with her demonstrated success
working at the intersection of education, workforce and employer hiring
make her the ideal person to drive our work on TechHire. I am thrilled
that Tess has joined our team.”

*Source: Burning Glass Technologies

About Opportunty@Work
Opportunity@Work’s
goal is to empower 1 million more Americans to work and earn to their
full potential over the next 10 years. Opportunity@Work is focusing
first on IT jobs because these roles, which are critical for employers
in almost every industry and pay fifty percent above the median wage,
account for roughly fifteen percent of open jobs in the United States.
These open IT jobs can be filled by fostering an ecosystem where job
seekers can demonstrate their abilities, where training providers are
focused on skills employers need, and where employers hire based on
ability, not pedigree.

About TechHire
TechHire
is a place-based effort led by communities and their partners –
including governors, mayors, employers, training institutions, local
technology associations, and other civic organizations – to take action
to create a better marketplace for IT jobs. The 50 communities including
cities, states, and rural areas have announced plans to create the
pathways for recruiting and placing applicants based on their skills and
to increase access to fast track tech training opportunities, based on
market-wide hiring needs. The long-term objective of TechHire is to
create the labor market conditions nationally that enable employers to
“hire when ready” and job seekers to be aware of, prepare for, and
connect with IT jobs and careers. By creating compelling proof points in
communities throughout the country; uncovering common challenges;
developing scalable solutions; and bringing to bear national and
regional partnerships and resources, TechHire, with support from
Opportunity@Work, will serve as a catalyst to transforming the broader
labor market.

To find out about Opportunity@Work and TechHire:
www.techhire.org
https://www.facebook.com/opportunityatwork
https://twitter.com/OpptyatWork

Media Contact
Yolanda Townsend
media@opportunityatwork.org