Eller College Technology Innovation Initiative Receives Grant from State Farm

Because technology and data literacy are becoming increasingly prominent in today’s work force, the Eller College of Management’s goal is to educate more tech-savvy business students. To that end, State Farm recently awarded Eller Tech Core with a grant to support the Eller College Technology Innovation Initiative.

Eller’s Technology Innovation Initiative includes immersing more technology into the curriculum as well as providing external resources that can be used by students, staff and faculty to learn and hone their skills in various forms of technology that are prominent in the business world.

A central pillar of the initiative is access to free technology workshops and trainings that are available to all Eller students through Level-up workshop and Eller Level-up online. The workshops are 90-minute sessions that introduce students to a form of workforce technology—including Excel, Tableau, several of the Adobe Creative Cloud programs, among many others. All the workshops are currently being delivered virtually as well as recorded. The recordings, along with several other tutorials and external learning resources, are posted to the Eller Level-up web page so students can access them at their convenience.

Part of the grant will be used to support students, staff and faculty in the form of “Technology Pioneer Awards” for their contribution in incorporating workforce technology into the Eller experience with the remainder used to promote the initiative. The team plans to recognize State Farm in various ways on social media for their contribution.

“With everything virtual, it has been a wild semester, but it is great to end on some good news,” says Gray Hunter, lecturer in economics and member of the Faculty Innovation Team. “We are looking forward to growing the Technology Innovation Initiative and nurturing future tech-savvy business professionals.”