Some international businesspartners have launched a new IT training program targeting unemployed women of color.

WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said his Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, is proud to work with UST Global in what’s called the “Step IT Up” program in Chicago.

He said the program focuses on “training minority women with community college degrees to work in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics] jobs – in the software industry, in the high-technology industry.”

UST Global, a Los Angeles-based information technology firm, aims to educate and hire 5,000 minority women across the country by 2020 through the Step IT Up America program.

In the Chicago area, about 100 formerly unemployed women will be trained and hired for IT jobs, including Ebony Tiggs, who lost her three children when a fire started at their suburban home in 2008.

“I could have given up that night. I could have let go. I could have moved into drugs. I could have thought of ending my own life at times. I could have done all of that, but I didn’t, because I believe in second chances, and UST Global is a second chance,” she said.

The first class of 33 women began the Step IT Up program in Chicago this week.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/06/19/it-firm-to-train-minority-women-in-stem-jobs/