Khanna Promotes Tech Job Coaching At Jackson State

[ad_1] by Daniel Johnson August 9, 2025

Khanna visited Jackson, Mississippi, to highlight TechWise, a Google-funded initiative he has helped introduce to HBCUs like Jackson State nationwide.

Following a $1.3 million grant awarded to Jackson State College to develop its synthetic intelligence applications, California Rep. Ro Khanna visited Jackson, Mississippi, to highlight TechWise, a Google-funded initiative he has helped introduce to HBCUs like Jackson State nationwide.

In line with The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, three years in the past, the college joined this system after Rep. Khanna opened discussions with the college and Almesha Campbell, JSU’s vp for analysis and financial growth.

As she instructed the outlet, the college has matriculated 35 college students by way of this system and at present has 12 college students enrolled in this system, which she described as a “workforce program” mixing skill-building and business expertise.

Jackson’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, kicked this system off throughout his administration and launched Rep. Khanna to the gang on the Smith Robertson Museum, whom he stated he met at a rally for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“What we did was create a program to create know-how jobs and coaching throughout the nation, and we partnered with about 15 totally different HBCUs. The scholars take part in a 10-hour per week, 18-month course, after which these children get a $65,000 to $85,000 job in know-how, however in addition they be taught and are in a position to be mentors to future college students in this system,” Rep. Khanna stated in his remarks.

He continued, “We’re producing extra wealth than we ever have within the historical past of this nation and only one or 2% of Black People are getting enterprise capital. We excluded the Black neighborhood from the agricultural revolution, we excluded the Black neighborhood from loads of the commercial revolution. Disgrace on us if the Black neighborhood is excluded from the digital revolution.”

TechWise, the outlet notes, was launched by the schooling know-how firm TalentSprint and receives funding from Google to supply free preparation for college kids from deprived backgrounds for high-paying careers in know-how.

As a part of this system, individuals obtain coaching, mentorship, networking, and business expertise. The primary observe of this system runs for 18 months, that includes reside digital lessons, coding workouts, and business tasks led by skilled instructors.

As well as, college students will even take part in masterclasses offered by Carnegie Mellon College’s Faculty of Pc Science, which can award them with an official credential.

As Rep. Khanna instructed Mississippi At this time, he has a deep appreciation for the civil rights motion, which he expressed by describing his grandfather’s participation in Mahatma Ghandi’s motion for Indian independence from British rule. That motion, as BLACK ENTERPRISE beforehand reported, impressed the nonviolent resistance techniques employed by Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers, amongst others.

Rep. Khanna additionally indicated that he believes that the nationwide Democratic Social gathering wants to speculate extra in Mississippi, and customarily, the South, the place Black individuals and folks of colour reside, held captive politically by voter suppression states. By investing in these states, Democratic candidates in states like Mississippi, Texas, and Florida, might develop into extra aggressive in statewide elections.

“The Civil Rights Motion then led to the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, and that’s what led my dad and mom to come back to america. Anybody who desires to know the historical past of segregation, the historical past of racial justice, has to know Mississippi,” Khanna stated. “And anybody who desires to see the hope and promise of financial growth has to come back right here.”