Project purpose: wayne county community college district's (wcccd) connecting minority communities (CMC) project aims to promote digital literacy and inclusion for students and anchor communities…

Project purpose: wayne county community college district's (wcccd) connecting minority communities (CMC) project aims to promote digital literacy and inclusion for students and anchor communities serviced by wcccd. The CMC pilot program consists of three core program components: broadband capacity building, access to broadband, and digital inclusion and building digital skills.activities: the CMC project is comprised of three primary activities: 1) building broadband and IT capacity; 2) increasing access to broadband and digital inclusion for students and anchor communities; and 3) building digital work skills. Wcccd will work with municipal and corporate collaborative partners to increase community access to broadband and build digital work skills. To build broadband and IT capacity, wcccd plans to update the on-site technology infrastructure and support services in its campus success centers and cyber labs. Wcccd will also build out a virtual server infrastructure to support online learners. Network engineers and cyber security professionals will be engaged in the design, installation and configuration of the virtual server, cyber lab and campus success center infrastructure. To increase access to broadband and digital inclusion, wcccd and its collaborating partners will assemble a regional digital literacy and skilling consortium to build the capacity of digital skilling organizations and develop equitable adoption strategies to ensure minority residents and patrons can build digital literacy and skilling to improve learning, employability, and well-being outcomes in minority communities served by the partnership. In addition, funding will empower the region to create a community of knowledge and practice to standardize and increase the penetration of digital literacy and skilling outcomes in minority communities across the region. To build digital work skills, wcccd will implement the CMC rocket 2 work training programs. Rocket 2 work will build the digital skills and IT workforce capacity in anchor communities through program offerings that will include cybersecurity, skilled trades programs, and IT. Outcomes: this project will strengthen the success outcomes for wcccd students through the enhancements of the institution's site-based technology resources and site-based labs and simulators. The capacity building component includes value-added project enhancement that consists of the development of campus success centers that are coordinated through wcccd's eastern campus regional training center and will increase student and community access to broadband and internet, and upgrades to wcccd's state of the art cyber security lab. Beneficiaries: beneficiaries of this project will include wayne county community college district students and the surrounding anchor communities. The wcccd connecting minority communities project will serve the anchor communities of wccccd's campuses in wayne county, michigan. The project will provide workforce training services to wcccd students and connect graduates to sustainable employment opportunities. Subrecipient activities (if applicable): the recipient does not intend to subaward funds.