Embracing a Culture of Creativity: Indiana’s Overlooked Economic Engine

2024-12-02T11:50:17-05:00November 27, 2024|

Economic prosperity is driven by creativity in more ways than many people realize. The most successful communities are those that best leverage their creative talent and embrace art and culture to unlock their economic potential. Doing so requires an understanding of, and support for, the creative economy. The creative economy’s impact is extensive, with major implications for talent development, innovation and entrepreneurship, economic prosperity, and quality of life and place. The last century has seen extraordinary proliferation in brand new creative industries, from television and video games to animation, podcasting, music streaming, and augmented reality. Creative industries are often responsible for the creation of technical innovations. With technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, new creative industries are sure to emerge in the future as well. To outcompete its neighbors, Indiana must deepen its focus on the creative [...]

Ascend Indiana awards $700,000 to four regional sites to pilot youth apprenticeship programs in local communities

2024-07-11T00:13:54-04:00July 9, 2024|

INDIANAPOLIS – Ascend Indiana, the talent and workforce development initiative of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP), announced today the award of $175,000 each to four sites to launch youth apprenticeship pilots in their local communities. Funding for these pilot programs comes from the generous support of the Walton Family Foundation and is administered by Ascend Indiana through the CICP Foundation. The four sites, located in Southern, East Central and West Central Indiana, serve 29 counties and include: Eastern Indiana Works (Muncie, Ind.) + East Central Education Service Center (New Castle, Ind.), Southern Indiana Education Center (Jasper, Ind.), Southern Indiana Works (New Albany, Ind.), and West Central Indiana Career and Technical Education Center (Crawfordsville, Ind.). These sites are part of the Indiana Youth Apprenticeship Accelerator, which Ascend launched in 2021 to expand work-based learning programs and to develop a [...]

Jason Kloth, Ascend Indiana president and CEO, to step down

2023-10-24T09:20:16-04:00October 24, 2023|

Jason Kloth, president and CEO, Ascend Indiana INDIANAPOLIS – Ascend Indiana today announced that President and CEO Jason Kloth, will step down on January 1, 2024. Kloth who helped to create the talent and workforce development organization nearly nine years ago, will serve in a consulting capacity after the first of the year to ensure a smooth transition. In addition to consulting for Ascend, CICP, and others, Kloth plans to focus on his family and spending more time with his two young children. Ascend Indiana is an initiative of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP). “Jason and his talented team have created an organization built on values that have led to impactful work in helping thousands of Hoosiers find jobs, internships and apprenticeships,” said Mark Hill, managing partner of Collina Ventures, and founding chairman of the Ascend Indiana [...]

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