EduSTEM is reaching out to a group that may normally have a hard time gaining skills for meaningful employment.
They provide assessment and computer training for individuals with high functioning autism (HFA) to allow them to find careers in software testing and development.
Many may not be aware that the traits that many HFA individuals display (extreme focus and highly analytical minds) are the same traits that many IT companies are looking for in new hires. EduSTEM offers basic, intermediate and advanced computer language programming to help them land jobs as software engineers or in data quality assurance. “Those that leave our company find pretty easy employment in the surrounding areas,” says Jeremiah Orians, Chief Technical Officer.
The companies’ ultimate goal is to establish an infrastructure of smart, capable individuals with at least a moderate level of creativity. Orians says innovation is ultimately about using risk and accepting it as the cost of going business. And they hope that any risk they may be taking pays off, “By the number of people we have working, hopefully one of them will be the next Facebook or Google.”
They are currently working with at least a dozen students they expect to graduate in the next year. “And at least of few of them,” says Orians, “have shown great potential to be employed.”
Source: Jeremiah Orians, EduSTEM
Writer: Allison Monroe, Innovation News Editor
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