where teams of girls will complete three “quests” during a six-week period before competing statewide with peers, the organization said in a statement. Girls Solve IT is meant to be fun, collaborative, and hands-on, and during its first year, the MCWT expects the program to impact 200 students.
—ExperienceIT, a collaboration between downtown tech companies and workforce development agencies in Detroit, has graduated its Fall 2017 class. Eighteen students completed the newly evolved 12-week program, which allowed for more self-directed training after hours. Since 2014, ExperienceIT has graduated nearly 200 people, with an average of 75 percent scoring full-time positions with partner companies such as Quicken Loans and GalaxE.Solutions after training.
—Walsh College in Troy has created a new academic concentration in the area of automotive cybersecurity. The concentration is an expansion of Walsh’s Fundamentals of Automotive Cybersecurity course, which was the first class of its kind nationally when it launched earlier this year. The new concentration will delve further into the industry, giving students an understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with the development of self-driving technologies.
—AutoMobili-D, the portion of the North American International Auto Show dedicated to mobility companies and technologies, will be back in 2018. This year, 57 startups from 11 countires will be highlighted at the January auto show, a 39 percent increase over last year. For more about each of the companies, check out this recent blog post by Ted Serbinski, managing director of Techstars Mobility.
—In more JPMorgan Chase news, the financial services firm announced it will invest $900,000 to support sustainable infrastructure projects in Detroit, including a project with the Eastside Community Network to rehab vacant commercial properties along the Mack Avenue corridor east of downtown. In addition, the company is retrofitting over 70 percent of the city’s Chase branches with LED lights and new building management systems.
—Donna Doleman Dickerson, the longtime vice president for marketing and communications at Ann Arbor SPARK, has taken a new position with GreenPath Financial Wellness. She will serve as the Farmingham Hills-based company’s chief marketing officer.
