55 Free Grants for Biofuels Training at UCSD

November 25, 2011
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

pplications are now available for continuing education grants at the University of California San Diego to retrain workers as general science technicians for the biofuels industry in the San Diego and Imperial County regions.

Approximately 55 students will begin classes in March of 2012, with each student receiving the equivalent of a $7,000 grant from the State of California. Prospective students from across California interested in applying for next year’s EDGE program, and biofuels and industrial biotechnology companies interested in hiring interns from the program, should contact Karen Overklift at the BIOCOM Institute: koverklift@biocom.org.

The students, who will attend classes at UC San Diego Extension and Mira Costa College, are in a program funded by a two-year, $4-million grant from California’s Department of Labor under the Green Innovation Challenge. “The university has been a leader in helping adult learners acquire new knowledge and skills that allow them to transition out of stagnant areas of the job market and participate into more vibrant areas as we are doing now with biofuels,” said Hugo Villar, director of science and technology at UC San Diego Extension.

The grant involves the work of a number of local partners, which include UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Mira Costa College EDGE program, SD-CAB, CleanTECH San Diego, BIOCOM Institute, BIOCOM, San Diego Workforce Partnership and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation.

“With this training, these students are prepared to support the region’s growing biofuels companies and help San Diego continue to be a leader in the biofuels sector,” said Jason Anderson, vice president of CleanTECH San Diego, a non-profit organization that is helping to accelerate San Diego as a world leader in the clean technology economy.

Go to Page