The following press release was distributed this morning and details Contegix’s exciting sponsorship of the Code Red Education program! This was also announced live on KMOX 1120 AM this morning by Code Red founder, Michael Palmer.
St. Louis, MO (December 16, 2013) – Contegix®, a cloud computing, colocation and managed hosting company that empowers customers by providing Go BeyondTM support, is announcing today its Flagship Sponsorship of Code Red Education, a St. Louis-based computer language education program. Contegix has donated $10,000 for Code Red’s mission to create, market and distribute a curriculum that teaches computer language and coding skills to students from first through twelfth grade.
The sponsorship will pay for more than 3,600 St. Louis students, roughly 16% of the city’s student population, to learn coding skills and train for jobs that haven’t yet been created. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting the creation of 2.2 million technical jobs over the next decade.
“We want to continue the trend of St. Louis growing as a tech hub. We see Code Red as a great long-term investment for the city,” said Matthew Porter, CEO of Contegix. “Code Red is teaching the next generation of St. Louisans how to do more than just navigate a website. It is laying the foundation for a highly educated, technical workforce.”
Large companies and startups alike are looking for communities that fulfill their staffing needs for technology jobs. By having these much needed skills added to St. Louis classrooms, the city becomes more attractive for the future workforce, which in turn also helps raise the city’s standard of living. According to research from Code Red, people with coding skills can increase their salary by up to 111% a year.
“Contegix is a company we try to emulate. They give back to the community to further its growth. As a leader in the growing technology sector here, Matthew sees the potential of Code Red and realizes the importance of early tech education,” said Michael Palmer, founder, Code Red Education. “Partnering with Contegix is a huge boost to our mission.”
Code Red allows students to develop logical reasoning and mental organizational skills, gives teacher training to foster sustainable educational growth for the students and helps certified students obtain computer science and technical jobs after graduation.
This sponsorship is part of an ongoing commitment by Contegix to help grow the region. As part of Contegix’s commitment to St. Louis, the company has donated more than $175,000 in MiraCloud services to Arch Grants winners. Code Red Education is a 2013 Arch Grants winner.