TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Think Together | September 13, 2022
Think Together, one of California's largest nonprofits serving K-12 schools today announced it has completed the merger with Orenda Education, a top school improvement and professional development consultancy. Upon the close, the combined organization will serve more than 200,000 students across the state with more than $150 million in annual revenue. Moreover, the organization will be better positioned to rapidly scale their impact.
"We're thrilled to bring our two organizations together in our combined efforts to improve student success and close the achievement gap,This merger is the natural evolution of Orenda's existing relationship with Think Together and solidifies our joint commitment to ensuring that the more than 2 million California students that are performing far below grade level have the support they need during the school day and beyond to succeed academically."
Think Together Founder and CEO Randy Barth
Over the past seven years, Think Together and Orenda have had an affiliate agreement in place while the full acquisition builds the long-term financial and operational capacities for Orenda to continue to scale. Orenda's work focuses on transformingeducation systems, either across a school district or by cohorts of schools, providing professional development to all levels of district staff, around a specific data-driven but people-centric school improvement model. Think Together partners with over 60 school districts and charter management organizations to provide more than 900 direct-to-student academic and enrichment programs at more than 450 school sites across California, serving more than 100,000 youth. Orenda Education works behind-the-scenes with school district leaders and educators to identify inequities in schools and then transform their systems to ensure all students have access to a premium education. "Think Together has always been an incredible partner, infusing the infrastructure needed to provide an efficient model for changing the odds for kids," said Orenda Education Founder and CEO Dr. Robin Avelar La Salle. "Our two models have always complemented each other but now, we can efficiently scale our vision for all students to receive the premium education they deserve." The acquisition comes as both organizations experience tremendous growth due in large part to new and renewed state investments in education to accelerate learning recovery efforts and provide educators with needed support amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "Now more than ever, teachers, school leaders and administrators need to think outside the box to address the issues impacting students including socio-economic biases, social emotional learning, and more," added Barth. "Providing these much-needed supports to educators means districts and schools can provide the skills they need to teach, lead and counsel during and following a period of great disruption during the pandemic. Recently the U.S. Department of Education reported a dramatic decline in scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) known as the nation's scorecard. Two decades of growth for American students in reading and math were wiped away by just two years of pandemic-disrupted learning, according to national test scores released last week. And, the declines were much larger for students at lower performance levels, widening already-huge learning disparities between the country's high- and low-achievers. Orenda's approach to school improvement has proven to accelerate student outcomes, such as mastery of grade-level standards (measured by math and English language SBAC scores), improved A-G class completion rates, and improved graduation rates. They also provide administrative coaching, teaching strategies, and leadership clinics. To expand these services, Orenda was recently awarded a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant by the U.S. Department of Education to digitize and distribute their school improvement approach through an online platform that is effective and highly scalable to schools and districts in any geography, and to those who require less in-person support. Think Together adds Orenda to their growing list of services that support student education in and around the school day. Think Together's flagship afterschool programs support students in underserved communities with homework help, enrichment, social-emotional learning and physical well-being, all to enable students to strive for college or a fulfilling career. To provide high-quality programs, Think Together partners with philanthropic organizations like the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Breaking down the barriers to opportunity, equity and access in education by keeping students and their success as the centered focus is one of the most meaningful investments for our future generations" said Alyssa Santino, Program Director of the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Ensuring the educators, leaders and structures around students are supported and inspired and effectively trained with research-based, proven and engaging strategies is imperative for thriving students and communities. We are pleased to partner with Think Together and Orenda Education as they excel in this space and continue to transform the trajectory of students and the schools they attend." Barth sees the combination of direct services to students through expanded and early learning, coupled with equity-based professional development, as an effective combination to supporting student achievement alongside their school district and charter partners. Dr. Paul Gothold, Superintendent of County Office of Education in San Diego agrees. His former district, Lynwood Unified School District, realized astonishing improvements when partnering with both Think Together and Orenda, including increasing graduation rates from 56% to 90.8%, and A-G college eligible rates from 18% to 53%. Orenda provides the technical expertise for true district turn-around. The systems approach and professional development modules to build staff capacity ensures all leaders have the tools and resources to provide a premium education for all students, said Gothold. "With Think Together's financial and operational support, Orenda is well positioned to continue providing much-needed education innovation to schools throughout the state and beyond.
About Think Together
For over 25 years Think Together has partnered with schools and communities to pursue educational equity and excellence for all kids. As a nonprofit organization, Think Together innovates, implements, and scales academic solutions that change the odds for hundreds of thousands of California students. Think Together's program areas include early learning, afterschool, school support services and leadership development for teachers and school administrators.
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CORPORATE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Bechtel | July 18, 2022
Bechtel has donated an additional £50,000 to the Institution of Engineering and Technology for its Launch Scholarship programme in celebration of the company's 70 years in the UK. The Launch Scholarship supports engineering students, degree apprentices, and apprentices who have faced financial challenges or personal obstacles. Bechtel's donation will support at least eleven students every year for the duration of their education. The donation adds to the £680,000 (US$970,000) that Bechtel has gifted to the IET for its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics educational outreach over the past decade."Bechtel has been a valued partner of the IET for almost a decade, including our founding sponsor for the FIRST® LEGO® League, said Sir Julian Young, IET president. This year's additional donation will enable us to support even more young people on their academic or apprenticeship path into engineering. We thank Bechtel for its continued support of the next generation as they each pursue their dreams.
"Engineering is a fulfilling career that helps tackle some of the world's biggest challenges, including diversifying our energy supply and achieving net zero. We need people from varied backgrounds to help us find the best solutions,We hope that this support will remove some of the obstacles that talented people can face in earning the qualifications needed to join our industry."
-John Williams, Bechtel's UK and Ireland managing director.
Bechtel has supported the IET since 2013, including as a founding supporter of the FIRST® LEGO® League competition that enables young people between the ages of 4-16 years old to develop STEM skills through hands-on learning. Some 100,000 children have participated in the UK program with over 15,500 children participating in 2020-21 competition. Bechtel also supports FIRST® programs in Australia, Chile, and the United States. Read more about FLL in the UK here.
Bechtel's 70th year in the UK coincides with Her Majesty the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, and earlier this year it celebrated the opening of a new railway named in her honor, the Elizabeth Line, through central London. The company's global infrastructure business is headquartered in the UK, from which it has directly supported projects across the UK, Ireland, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, accelerating progress, creating access and opportunity, building a path to net zero, and protecting people and our planet so that future generations thrive.
About Bechtel
Bechtel is a trusted engineering, construction and project management partner to industry and government. Differentiated by the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes, we align our capabilities to our customers' objectives to create a lasting positive impact. Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world's infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.Bechtel serves the Energy; Infrastructure; Nuclear, Security & Environmental; and Mining & Metals markets. Our services span from initial planning and investment, through start-up and operations. www.bechtel.com
About the IET
We inspire, inform and influence the global engineering community to engineer a better world. We are a diverse home for engineering and technology intelligence throughout the world. This breadth and depth means we are uniquely placed to help the sector progress society. We want to build the profile of engineering and technology to change outdated perceptions and tackle the skills gap. This includes encouraging more women to become engineers and growing the number of engineering apprentices. Interview opportunities are available with our spokespeople from a range of engineering and technology disciplines including cyber-security, energy, engineering skills, innovation, manufacturing, technology, transport and diversity in engineering.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
TalentSprint | July 25, 2022
TalentSprint, a global edtech company and a market leader in transformational deeptech programs, today announced a multi-year and multi-program partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) School of Computer Science (SCS), Executive & Professional Education – World’s #1 Computer Science School. The Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps, first to be launched under this partnership, aims at fulfilling a growing need for new-age DevOps professionals in the APAC region.
Most impacted by digital transformation, industries like BFSI, IT, Healthcare, Retail, Media and Entertainment are creating enormous opportunities for DevOps specialists globally. These market dynamics positions CMU’s well-researched Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps as a significant addition in the upskilling journey of the aspirants.
“This partnership has further strengthened our presence in the United States. CMU’s School of Computer Science is iconic and this association is a validation of our success in path-breaking programs with leading institutes and global tech organizations in India and the US. Our first program with CMU aims at creating world-class DevOps specialists.”
Santanu Paul, CEO of TalentSprint.
Commenting on the launch, Ram Konduru, Director of Executive Education at the CMU-SCS said, “We were exploring international markets like India, Middle East and Southeast Asian markets that have a growing demand for tech professionals. We wanted to collaborate with a serious edtech company that could align with our core competencies and help us reach out to new geographies. We are happy to announce our association with TalentSprint and launch our first program in DevOps.”
The Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps will help participants with in-depth knowledge of various new-age DevOps tools. The 6-month high-impact program, designed and taught by the expert faculty of CMU-SCS, who are globally renowned thought leaders in DevOps such as Professor Len Bass, and research scientists Hasan Yassar and Joseph Yankel. On successful completion, participants will receive CMU’s globally recognized certificate. The program will be delivered on TalentSprint’s digital platform ipearl.ai. Applications for this program are open.
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