Building Silicon Holler in Eastern Kentucky
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Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) and ARC’s federal co-chair Earl Gohl speak at Tech Hire Eastern Kentucky event about “Silicon Holler.”
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This week, Kentucky’s Governor Matt Bevin, U.S. Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and ARC Federal Co-Chair Earl Gohl welcomed U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) for a visit to the TechHire Eastern Kentucky (TEKY) training center in Paintsville, Kentucky—the heart of eastern Kentucky’s growing advanced tech sector known as “Silicon Holler.” As part of this visit, Rep. Khanna, whose district includes California’s Silicon Valley, participated in a roundtable discussion with Kentucky’s economic leaders and national innovators from Amazon and Apple to discuss the potential for eastern Kentucky’s tech sector. “One of the things I’ve seen in this Region [in Kentucky] that’s similar to Silicon Valley is collaboration, a willingness to take risks and to dream big,” said Khanna.
Silicon Holler is anchored by coding companies like BitSource, community development organizations like Shaping our Appalachian Region (SOAR), and TEKY—a public-private partnership between the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC), Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) and Interapt. With ARC support through the POWER Initiative to diversify the economy in coal impacted communities, TEKY recently graduated its inaugural cohort of computer and coding interns. The Coding Academy consists of an intensive 32- week program (16 weeks of paid classroom work, followed by a 16-week paid apprenticeship). Graduates are immediately eligible for full-time employment with the eastern Kentucky division of Interapt, a software development firm. TEKY plans to soon announce available slots for the next round of interns, with intent to train another 200 technology professionals over the next three years. “Silicon Holler is fueled by energy, dedication and determination,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Earl Gohl. “This coordinated approach to developing a robust tech sector is making Appalachia more economically competitive across the nation and across the world.”
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Ag Students Get Golden Experience, Times Daily, Florence, Alabama
UPIKE Students Awarded Scholarships for Research, Floyd County Times, Prestonsburg, Kentucky
Workshop for Getting Connected with Broadband, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, West Virginia
Leaders, Experts Discuss High-Tech Jobs for Eastern Kentucky, WYMT Mountain News, Eastern Kentucky
Silicon Holler: How Workforce Retraining is Bringing Tech Jobs to Appalachia, TechRepublic
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The deadline for teams from communities that are the entry points to Appalachia’s most important natural assets to apply for the next Appalachian Gateway Communities Regional Workshop is March 24th. Learn more about the workshop to be held on May 9–11, 2017, in Ringgold, Georgia:
http://bit.ly/2lNrbRm
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