MemphisResiliency Tech Hub

Section 03

Cradle to career: the three training pillars

Elementary school children building and programming a robot with their teacher in a STEAM lab
It starts in Pre-K
Watch: BigHope Foundation
Watch: Bridge 2 Trades
Young people in Bridge 2 Trades safety vests and hard hats touring a union training shop
Teenagers on the floor · photo by Bridge 2 Trades

BigHope Foundation

The spark

BigHope builds STEAM labs inside Title I elementary schools, where children fly drones, code robots, and solve engineering challenges starting in Pre-K. Its work serves student populations that are overwhelmingly minority and low-income, and its supporters already include major national companies and the NFL Foundation. On this campus, BigHope gives North Memphis kids their first hands-on encounter with the technology and trades this hub runs on. A child who builds a robot in third grade does not need to be convinced at eighteen that these careers are for her. She already knows.

thebighope.org

Bridge 2 Trades

The pathway

Bridge 2 Trades prepares underrepresented youth and young adults for careers in the skilled trades through career exploration, exposure, and mentorship, backed by construction industry leadership with a decade-plus record of workforce investment. On this campus, Bridge 2 Trades is the on-ramp: the connection between a Memphis teenager and the electrical, mechanical, and construction pathways that lead into the Training Center and out into careers.

bridge2trades.com@bridge2trades

The Data Institute

The future skills

The Data Institute teaches communities to understand, govern, and benefit from data, the raw material of the modern economy. Its research champions a simple principle: the people who live around technology should share in its value. On this campus, the Institute anchors data literacy and AI-era skills training, and gives Memphis a voice in how the digital economy serves the community that hosts it. Our students will not just work in the future economy. They will help write its rules.

thedatainstituteus.org

Aligned with industry standards

NVIDIA logo

NVIDIA

GE logo

GE

Uptime Institute logo

Uptime Institute