The Fueling Our Future initiative, a program of the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation (EDC), along with public and private sector leaders, has announced a $50,000 community investment gift in the Emerging Prairie’s Emerging Digital Academy.
Fueling Our Future’s $50,000 gift is a community investment by the long-term initiative, led by private and public investors–including Sanford Health, Gate City Bank, Microsoft, and the cities of Fargo and West Fargo. Fueling Our Future has been endorsed by both The Fargo-Moorhead West Fargo Chamber and Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation Boards.
The three pillars guiding Fueling Our Future are: People (workforce development); Prosperity (economic development); and Place (community assets/quality of life).
“The Emerging Digital Academy provides a critical pipeline of talent to support our region’s growing tech industry. The Academy’s mission aligns with FOF efforts to support workforce development to fuel our economy. We look forward to helping generate solutions that create lasting regional impacts,” Randy Gerhold Fargo R&D Site Leader, Microsoft and Fueling Our Future Governance Board Chair.
Fueling Our Future joins other community leaders providing financial support to North Dakota’s first (and only) immersive coding school. They are: Bushel, Sycorr, Microsoft, Scheels, CoSchedule, and Onsharp. Stoneridge Software, Network Center, AT&T and Codelation have also provided support.
Emerging Digital Academy’s Program Director, Blaine Booher, was thankful. “This gift will help ensure the long-term success of Emerging Digital Academy and–in turn–the careers of our students. We’re thrilled that Fueling Our Future’s mission so aligns with our own–to upskill the workforce, create new career opportunities and improve our region’s overall quality of life. We’ve been shown so much support from our community…it’s really inspiring.”
Emerging Digital Academy will graduate software engineers–a role critical to many area employers. Emerging Digital Academy shares a curriculum with Minneapolis’s Prime Digital Academy, which places 85% of their graduates within six months of graduation–with an average 77% increase over their previous salary. The Academy just began its first cohort in April, 2020 with 13 students. The second cohort begins in July.
Emerging Digital Academy (powered by Emerging Prairie) is expected to have a high impact on those wishing to upgrade their career and will strongly impact the economy of our region by upskilling its workforce. Emerging Digital Academy is a 501c3 non-profit.
