August 3rd, 2017 – Redding, California – In a short ceremony held at the Shasta Regional Community Foundation offices, Cloud Wise Academy received a donation from the Leadership Redding Class of 2017. This money, paid to the Cloudwise scholarship fund, is intended to help female students take Cloud Wise Academy’s accelerated technology courses. The goal is to encourage young women to succeed in the increasingly important field of technology.
Cloud Wise Academy
Cloud Wise Academy held its first class in July of 2016. Since then, it has trained approximately 100 students in the high-demand technology skills that matter so much, including WordPress, HTML, and Search Engine Optimization.
The classes are accelerated – from three to six weeks – and teach only the skills that employees might need, cutting out theory from the curriculum. These classes are also taught by professionals in web development and other technological fields.
Since the inception of the school, many graduates have gone on to launch prosperous careers in technology. For instance, Chris Webber, became a web designer after taking several Cloud Wise Academy Classes.
“The goal of Cloud Wise Academy is really to help Shasta County, by making sure we have the type of workforce we need,” said Jake Hinton, as he accepted the check. He is the Project Manager at Cloud Wise Academy, and a former student of the program.
Leadership Redding and women in tech
Numerous important individuals in the community attended this event, including the Shasta County District Attorney, Stephanie Bridgett. There were also representatives from many local businesses.
Megan Conn is the development manager at Turtle Bay and a member of the Leadership Redding class of 2017. “Every year, Turtle Bay sends someone to be in Leadership Redding – I’m lucky that this time it was me,” she said. Conn described the team’s decision to fund a Cloud Wise Academy student this way:
“Every year, the current class of Leadership Redding does a project,” she says. “For ours, we decided to focus on a problem we heard about throughout the year, at all the different events we attended: Low educational attainment in Redding and Shasta County. We wanted to help with efforts designed to keep young people there and to develop better paying jobs. During our economic development day we attended an event called Amplify, and many of us were very interested in the speakers from Cloud Wise Academy.”
“We talked it over,” she continued, “and we thought it was a valid and wonderful alternative for people in terms of career paths. Also, we noticed there weren’t quite as many women speaking at Amplify that day, so we decided our project would focus on that aspect as well. The money for the donation came from the pockets of all of the students in the Leadership Class, who were really inspired by the work Cloud Wise Academy is doing and wanted to pay it forward.”
The donation to Cloud Wise Academy is only one part of the project. “Later in the year,” Megan explains, “we’re going to be gathering some professional clothing to donate for job interviews at the career day for Pioneer High School – which is the continuation high school in Redding.”
As Cloud Wise Academy is a private company, rather than a non-profit, the Shasta Regional Community Foundation administers the scholarship fund. The scholarship completely pays for student classes – many of the students who were most successful in the program were able to attend because of a scholarship.
Cloud Wise Academy was founded in 2016 to teach “learn to earn” skills that workers and company owners can use to succeed in today’s e-commerce economy. Classes are purposefully held in the evenings so people with jobs and families can attend conveniently. Courses are taught by experts in the field, who use those skills in their own professions.
