The Economic Development Engine.
A complete cohort cycle, co-branded with your center.
Every cycle produces businesses served, workers trained, and dollars impacted — formatted exactly the way NIST MEP and WIOA count them. Your seal on every certificate, every report, every portal.
The Roadmap for Northeast Tennessee
Five pillars to address. Four steps to execute on each — done holistically, at the same time, not in sequence.
The Five Pillars
- 01
Educate Employers
Business leaders need to understand what AI can do — and where to start.
- 02
Technical Enablement
Selection, configuration, integration. Most employers can't staff this internally.
- 03
Job Seeker Navigation
AI screens résumés and interviews. Candidates need to understand the filter.
- 04
Upskill the Existing Workforce
The largest group. Better versions of current jobs — highest impact per dollar.
- 05
Retrain the Displaced
A funded pathway into new roles — placement, support, dignity.
Four Steps, Done Together
- 01
Assess current readiness at the job level
- 02
Job-specific training
- 03
Implementation support
- 04
Assess progress
Closing the skills gap
AI isn't creating a skills gap. It is closing it.
Talent Skills Growth
Turn untapped local potential into real business capacity.
The Four AI Layers
Different roles need different training.
One generic AI conversation misses the mark. From the boardroom to the front line, every role meets AI differently — and needs training that fits how they actually work.
Already Underway
AI Education Coalition
Northeast Tennessee's higher education and workforce training institutions aren't planning an AI curriculum — they're running one. Four organizations. One shared mission. Real students. Real skills. Real employers.
- Partner organizations
- 5
- Active courses & programs
- 20+
- Degree-granting institutions
- 3
- Fully active
- 2026
-
Tusculum University
4-year universityTusculum integrates applied AI across undergraduate business and marketing tracks — and anchors the coalition's graduate-level offering.
-
East Tennessee State University
Research universityETSU's dual enrollment pipeline brings AI into the high school classroom — giving students college credit before they graduate. Internship and independent study tracks connect learning directly to regional employers.
-
CloudWise Academy
Workforce trainingCloudWise is where this started — practical AI skills for workers, jobseekers, and small business owners. No prerequisites. No fluff. Just the tools that change what's possible on Monday morning.
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Founder's Forge
Entrepreneurship & productFounder's Forge builds the entrepreneurs and product thinkers. These aren't courses about AI — they're courses that use AI to build real products, from idea to prototype, with real market feedback.
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Jeremiah School
Alternative educationJeremiah School brings AI into the core curriculum alongside foundational academics — proving that AI literacy isn't just for four-year universities. Every student, every path.
A baseline score for every business in the cohort.
Before any training begins, every cohort participant takes a structured digital readiness assessment that measures where they stand today across brand, online presence, content, lead capture, email, and AI readiness.
Industry-relevant courses, on your branded platform.
AI for Productivity. AI for Marketing. Plus modules built for your sector. Delivered through the co-branded LMS your client businesses log into. Train-the-trainer for your Solutions Consultants.
The platform is the classroom. The work is real.
Not a sandbox. Each business publishes their actual website by week two. Their actual social channels by week three. Their actual newsletter by week five.
Outcomes your funder counts.
Businesses served. Workers trained. Jobs touched. Dollars impacted. Every cycle ends with launched businesses and the metrics that justify the next funding round.
Track every cycle in real time.
A live dashboard your team uses to monitor every active cohort. Per-business progress. Cohort health. Aggregate program metrics. The view your director needs every Monday.
Proof of impact. Per business.
Most workforce programs measure attendance. The Engine measures change. Every business has a pre-assessment and a post-assessment, with every step in between tracked and timestamped. With launched assets attached as evidence.
Replaces ~$400K of standalone services.
Tech infrastructure, doctoral-professor instruction, AI models, assessments, data, reports, and cohort delivery. All bundled into one annual line item.
One annual partnership replaces ~$400K in standalone services.
Co-branded LMS, marketing/web platform, AI assistant + knowledge base, frontier AI model access, doctoral-professor instruction, custom curriculum, pre/post assessments, data instrumentation, impact reports, cohort delivery, and intern pipeline.Run the Engine in your region.
30-minute scoping call. We walk through your sector mix, your funder reporting requirements, and what a co-branded academy would look like for your center specifically.