Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council leaders are teaming with the city of Roanoke to try to answer this question: How do you keep recent college graduates living and working nearby?
They publicized a possible answer last week, a yearlong program called ChangeMakerZ that promises to teach artificial intelligence skills to folks in science, technology, engineering and math fields while helping them build community among themselves.
The program, which the city is helping to fund and RBTC is running, wants 20 people with no more than five years of work experience from companies headquartered or operating in Virginia. Between this June and May of next year, the RBTC will amp up participants’ professional development while showing them the region’s sites and giving them a chance to get to really know one another in ways that organizers hope will influence them to stay around.
Further incentive: $5,000 for those who complete the program. Coworking space, networking events including Tech on Tap and two professional conferences in Roanoke are part of the package as well.
“For years we here in the region have tried to figure out, how do we maximize the assets of our higher education institutions here and prevent brain drain?” said Jason Clayton, RBTC’s technology talent strategist. “There’s so many great sources of young talent here that are getting developed through our higher education institutions. How do we keep them here?
“So many of them will leave. They have reasons to go, which is great. But if they have the opportunity to stay, how do we create that? Especially based on the generational needs of Generation Z right now, the majority of the student population.”
ChangeMakerZ is open to STEM pros who have graduated in the last five years with associate, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees, or will graduate by June 1. Employers would foot the bill, with RBTC member companies paying $625 per person and non-member companies $1,250. RBTC has made it sweeter for council member businesses, offering a two-for-one special.
Organizers are giving preference to people who live and work in the GO Virginia economic initiative’s Region 2, according to a news release. Region 2 encompasses the cities of Covington, Lynchburg, Radford, Roanoke and Salem, and Alleghany, Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Botetourt, Campbell, Craig, Floyd, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski and Roanoke counties.
Participants will be expected to come to Roanoke or Blacksburg for sessions, with the coworking space option mitigating that requirement, Clayton said.
News releases about ChangeMakerZ last week said it was “powered by Roanoke.” The city’s economic development director, Marc Nelson, said it sprang from $15.7 million that Virginia provided to the city to fund a shared lab space project set for a former Carilion building on Jefferson Street. The city’s match for that project was $1.9 million and went to both Virginia Western Community College and Verge — the umbrella organization for RBTC — for programming, Nelson said.
[Disclosure: Verge is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
A portion of the Verge money is funding ChangeMakerZ, Nelson said.
“And I think that’s really helpful, because it’s something that the city wouldn’t necessarily be able to do on its own, but that Verge and RBTC are perfectly situated to do so,” he said. “In this case, it was a great use of city resources.”
City staff, particularly Nelson and Brad Boettcher, Roanoke’s innovation administrator, will jump in to facilitate some of the programming. RBTC will engage subject matter experts on AI and other topics. Classes will take place soon after daytime work hours, so the participants can stay with their employers, too, Clayton said, and some events will happen on weekends. Overall, participants can expect to spend six to eight hours per month with ChangeMakerZ.
ChangeMakerZ will happen at locations in Blacksburg and Roanoke, including the Gill Memorial Building on Jefferson Street, home to Verge and RBTC. Applications will be taken through April 15 via rbtc.tech/talent-jobs/changemakerz.
“We don’t know of a lot of programs across the country that are designed like this,” Clayton said. “There’s some talent attraction programs where it’s … we will pay you to move here, we’ll pay off your student loans, but this is different in that. We’re doing that with $5,000 plus a lot of professional development, place making, social connection, all the things that we all need as human beings and professionals.”