CUMU Conference 2019

Led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Innovate Birmingham’s durable coalition of 15 community partners and more than 30 employers is woven together by a shared belief: talent is distributed equally in our community but opportunity is not. Our goal is to solve two problems with a unified approach: (1) meet the demand of an IT workforce growing at the second-fastest pace in the country; (2) harness the potential of under- and unemployed youth in Greater Birmingham. Our programs establish a sustainable pipeline of talent in Birmingham to fuel inclusive innovation for local employers, meeting IT workforce demand for the region by offering demand-driven education, training and employment opportunities for area youth who are disconnected from the labor market. The proposed session provides a case study of the Innovate Birmingham workforce development framework effort to strengthen ties between two- and four-year programs and build bridges to non-traditional education programs (such as bootcamps and apprenticeships) while connecting students in local high schools to opportunities for training and development for high demand IT occupations. The purpose of this session is to describe the initiation of the workforce partnership that was critical to the creation of the Innovate Birmingham Workforce Development Program. We will discuss the employer engagement process and how feedback from employers was used to guide the development and reiteration of training program.