The Richard King Mellon Foundation on Wednesday announced that it has approved more than $2.6 million in grants this year to train workers for “new economy jobs” in such fields as robotics, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
The foundation has awarded 16 total grants to job-training and career-readiness initiatives, most of which were approved by its board in June. The money already has been given to the organizations.
Foundation director Sam Reiman said the grants are part of the foundation’s new 10-year strategic plan. He said the foundation is “committed to making significant investments in economic development.”
“One of the things we also wanted to make sure we were investing in is individuals’ abilities to obtain the new jobs that will be created as part of all of those efforts,” Reiman said.
That means funding initiatives across the region and across such demographics as age and race. Money will go to organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania to help grow STEM programs for kids, and Resilient Coders, which offers software engineering bootcamps for predominantly Black young adults.
