Information Infrastructure Workshop for Educators

Every data center AWS builds needs electricians, fiber technicians, mechanical crews and operations staff, and most of them are hired locally. The people who steer local students toward careers, CTE directors, counselors, deans and workforce boards, rarely see that work up close. They rarely sit in the same room as the contractors who hire for it, either.

Colleges can't build programs for jobs they can't picture, and employers can't hire from programs that don't exist. AWS needed a repeatable way to show regional education and workforce leaders what information infrastructure work involves, then seat them across the table from the employers with open positions, in each community where it invests.

AWS and Eleven Tenths built I2W, a free one-day workshop for education and workforce leaders. The morning is hands-on: industry professionals lead sessions in skills like conduit bending and fiber splicing, with equipment brought in on AWS's mobile training rig. Employers join in the afternoon for a networking lunch and facilitated conversations about the roles they need to fill.

Eleven Tenths runs the playbook behind each event: a planning calendar that starts 12 weeks out and assigns every task to either the host or AWS, plus registration, the event page and the flyer. In 2026 the team added a half-day version for career counselors and academic advisors. The first runs November 3 in New Carlisle, Indiana, with Ivy Tech Community College.

Eight workshops have run in seven states since the first, at Tolles Career & Technical Center outside Columbus, Ohio, in November 2023. Hosts have included Germanna, Luzerne County and Richmond community colleges, West Georgia Technical College and Butts County Schools. Two more are set for this fall, in Bossier City, Louisiana and New Carlisle, Indiana.

After the four 2026 workshops, 72 attendees answered a follow-up survey: 42 from schools and colleges, 18 employers and 12 from government and economic development. 98% were satisfied with the day, 83% very satisfied, and 90% said it was valuable for their workforce development work. Educators ranked learning about career opportunities as the most valuable part.

The workshop is often where training starts. In five of the eight regions, a paid I2PA pre-apprenticeship cohort followed. Hamlet, North Carolina opened one three weeks after its workshop, and Butts County, Georgia two weeks after its own.

Every workshop to date, and where a pre-apprenticeship cohort followed in the same region.

Shaded rows are scheduled. Host names from each event's program page.