Amazon has partnered with LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC), the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY) to launch an initiative that aims to equip students with cloud computing skills and help them get jobs in the tech industry.
The program is part of Amazon’s effort to provide workforce development and training opportunities for local residents across New York, as the company begins hiring for its upcoming Long Island City headquarters.
Students at participating colleges will be able to access new training courses by Fall 2019, plus every student who graduates from the program will receive membership in the AWS Educate program, which provides opportunities for hands-on experience with cloud technologies and tools from AWS, at no cost to the student.
But the move could be seen as a way to curry favor with NYC locals, amid outrage over Amazon receiving roughly $3 billion in grants and tax breaks from the state of New York.
In exchange for these incentives, Amazon promised to invest $2.5 billion in the city, and create 25,000 high-paying jobs over the next decade.
Source: datacenterdynamics.com
