On July 16, Doug Erickson, executive director of Santa Cruz Works, and Faris Sabbah, County Superintendent of Schools, announced a partnership to provide educators and students access to local tech webinars. The partnership enables any transitional kindergarten-12th grade educator or student in Santa Cruz County to join Santa Cruz Works webinars for free.
Santa Cruz Works hosts four to five virtual events per month focused on skills development, connecting the community with coworking & accelerators, businesses, venture capital, and other job-growth organizations. In the future, Santa Cruz Works will create educator and student-specific events.
“We are excited by this long-awaited partnership,” said Erickson. “Connecting educators and students to startups and technologies fuels the skills and job opportunities our community needs to grow a vibrant economy.”
“It is essential students and educators truly understand the local high-tech workforce to be able envision possible career paths in our community” said Sabbah.
“We have seen incredible collaboration and support between businesses and the community,” said Bonnie Lipscomb, director of economic development for City of Santa Cruz. “Organizations like Santa Cruz Works and Get Virtual have been invaluable in pairing tech volunteers and students with business owners to provide access to technology support to bring their businesses online and create new ways for customers to access their services in the need for more low-touch and no-touch business operations.”
Among the first events educators and students are invited to attend are:
- 05 Aug: Santa Cruz Works New Tech: 2020 SC Biotech Startups
- 05 Aug: Regeneración Climate of Hope
A full events calendar can be found at santacruzworks.com
Santa Cruz Works was recently recognized by State of California Treasurer Ma for generating $432,000 of gift donations to local businesses impacted by Shelter-in-Place. Partner companies and advisors include: Amazon, Bay Federal Credit Union, Central Coast Angels, City of Santa Cruz Economic Development, CruzFoam, Cruzio, Digital NEST, Inboard Technologies, Joby Aviation, LifeAid, Looker, Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, NextSpace, Poly, productOps, Richter Law Offices, Santa Cruz County Bank, Santa Cruz County Business Council, Santa Cruz Tech Beat, South Swell Ventures, Startup Sandbox, UC SantaCruz and Wynn Capital Management.