A job training effort hosted by tech giant Google held its first Ohio workshop in Columbus at the main downtown library Monday.
Grow With Google workshops aim to familiarize small business owners and employees with digital tools they can integrate into their work, such as Google Drive and Google Sheets. (Grow with Google is also an underwriter of WOSU.)
The idea behind this event, said Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, is to break down barriers preventing people from learning digital skills vital to being competitive in today’s economy.
“The states that do this best will be the ones that win," Husted said at the workshop. "The communities that do this best will be the ones that win, and the ones that don’t will fall behind.”
Husted says he hopes this will be part of a larger emphasis on workforce training and will help integrate people with disabilities more into Ohio’s economy.
“If you want everybody to participate in a growing economy, you’ve got to reach out and find everybody," Husted said. "It can't be just the people who’ve traditionally been in tech.”
Grow With Google is hosting workshops around the U.S., and will visit Akron and Lima next week.
Google announced in February that it plans on building a $600 million data center in New Albany this year.
