$3M grant to boost Latinx tech careers
- A $3 million grant aims to expand tech training and job placement for Madison's Latinx residents. - Program partners include local colleges and employers, targeting hundreds of participants over multiple years. - Advocates say the investment could diversify the tech workforce and address local hiring gaps (patch.com)
A Madison nonprofit has landed nearly $3 million to build a tech hub aimed at moving more Latinx residents into digital skills training and tech jobs. (wispolitics.com) Centro Hispano of Dane County announced April 17 that Ascendium Education Group committed the funding for a new Centro Tech Hub. Centro said the project will expand digital literacy, workforce development, entrepreneurship and leadership programs for the Latinx community in Wisconsin. (wispolitics.com) Centro said the hub will roll out in three phases: community-informed research, expansion of in-house training pathways, and a bilingual online learning platform. The organization said it already serves more than 7,500 people a year with more than 20,000 hours of programming. (wispolitics.com) The grant lands as Wisconsin employers keep reporting more openings than available workers. A University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension report said the state averaged 190,180 job openings a month from January 2021 through February 2025, against 97,081 unemployed people, a gap of 93,099 workers. (economicdevelopment.extension.wisc.edu) Federal data shows the shortage has not disappeared. Wisconsin had 119,000 job openings in December 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (bls.gov) Centro has been building workforce programs for years on Madison’s South Side. In a 2022 City of Madison funding application, the group said it had nearly 40 years of experience serving immigrant and Latinx families and supported more than 7,000 clients and 3,000 families annually through free bilingual and bicultural programs. (cityofmadison.com) The city has also backed a broader buildout around Centro’s campus. Madison’s engineering department said in 2023 that federal American Rescue Plan Act funding would support a new Centro headquarters so the nonprofit could expand workforce training and programming for the Latinx community. (cityofmadison.com) Ascendium said its mission is to help learners from low-income backgrounds reach education and career goals after high school. That fits Centro’s pitch for a bilingual tech pipeline that starts with basic digital skills and extends to job-focused training. (ascendiumeducation.org; wispolitics.com) Centro framed the hub as a long-term workforce project, not a short class series. The next step is turning the grant into training programs, employer links and an online platform that can reach Latinx learners beyond one Madison building. (wispolitics.com)
