Today, Microsoft launched TechSpark, a national civic program aimed at fostering greater economic opportunity and job creation through partnership with rural and smaller metropolitan communities.
Our goal is to learn about local challenges and to implement and learn from digital initiatives to help accelerate growth, with a plan to then share that learning more broadly. We are working in communities and with local partners on five programs that will help accelerate economic growth through regional internet connectivity, digital skills development, career skills development, nonprofit support and digital business transformation.
The initiative will evolve over time based on our learnings and we will initially focus our resources and deep partnership on specific communities in six states: in North Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. To learn more, please view this LinkedIn post from Microsoft President Brad Smith.