The SCTE Foundation announced the launch of a new campaign intended to build a fund of $10 million or more to be used to sustain educational, training, and diversity initiatives for the cable telecommunications workforce indefinitely into the future.
The Foundation's "#BuildingExperts" campaign is tasked with generating more than $7 million in new donations over the next three years to complement more than $2.6 million currently on hand. The goal is for investment income alone to fund grants that can advance the Foundation's mission of increasing workforce skills and supporting growth of cable engineering careers for women, minorities, and young people outside of the industry.
"As an educational resource for current and future technical professionals, the SCTE Foundation seeks to play an important role in deepening and diversifying our industry's talent pipeline," said Mark Hess, senior vice president, business and industry affairs for Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and president/chairman of the SCTE Foundation. "The '#BuildingExperts' campaign is designed to ensure continuous, dedicated support for current and new grants and scholarships that will help improve the skills of our workforce and attract bright new talent to the industry."
The new campaign already has received notable industry support. Advance/Newhouse's Nomi Bergman and Cisco's Yvette Kanouff are spearheading the campaign to secure large corporate and individual donors; Broadband Advisors Group's Keith Hayes is marshaling grassroots contributions. Pledges made during a kickoff event at SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2016 included $50,000 each from ARRIS (NASDAQ:ARRS) and Huawei, as well as large individual pledges from a variety of executives, including Hess, Hayes, Shaw Communications' Jay Mehr, CommScope's Jim Hughes, and others.
Established in 2005, the SCTE Foundation is intended to increase the technical, business, and leadership skills of the telecommunications engineering workforce; attract and recruits women, minorities, and veterans into engineering careers; and position the telecommunications industry as a desirable career opportunity for aspiring young people in the early stages of their careers. More information about the SCTE Foundation is available at http://foundation.scte.org.
