Apple Co-Founder Wozniak Launches Institute to Help Grow Tech Workforce

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak started a digital educational institute designed to move people into the tech industry workforce “quickly and affordably,” he said in a Friday announcement. The goal is to create “long-term financial stability” for next-generation tech workers and to provide training solutions for businesses, Wozniak said. Woz U is based in Arizona. Courses will be online initially, but Wozniak plans to add ground campuses in more than 30 cities in the U.S. and around the world. A Woz U app helps match applicants with careers best suited to them, and the institute will include multiple teaching and training platforms. One will work with tech companies to recruit and train a workforce through subscription-based curricula or on-site customized programs. Another will provide school districts with K-12 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics) programs, “exposing digital engineering concepts to students at a younger age to nudge them toward a possible tech-based career,” he said. A future accelerator program will help identify and develop elite tech talent.