Increasingly, data skills are no longer the province of experts but are needed by most government workers – an issue we wrote about in Route Fifty near the end of 2023.

One newly expanded opportunity available for government workers stems from a $2 million grant that Google has given Innovate-US, which has a free online data learning curriculum. Innovate-US is run through the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, in collaboration with The GovLab, a research center at New York University. 

A blog post from last fall by Beth Noveck, director of the Burnes Center, explained that the grant will enable Innovate-US to expand its free online training to 50,000 government workers across at least 15 states. Citing the growing focus on digital training in Canada and Singapore, Noveck cited data skill gaps among public professionals in the U.S., and the “widening gap between the skills our public workers have (and want), and the ones citizens need.”

In addition to the funding provided by Google, Innovate-US training “will now include access to the Google Career Certificates program to help advance proficiencies across critical areas like cybersecurity, data analytics and project management,” she wrote.

Information about Innovate-US free workshops, at-your-own-pace online courses, and live online programs are available here.

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