The Richard King Mellon Foundation in Pittsburgh has announced sixteen grants totaling more than $2.6 million in support of career development efforts across the southwest Pennsylvania region.

Grants were awarded to help initiate and expand job-training, career readiness, and employment initiatives. Recipients include Boys and Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania, which was awarded $250,000 to develop a learning management system to enable the organization to scale its artificial intelligence, computer science, and other STEM programs; MicroSociety, which will receive $250,000 to develop and implement an online platform with local partners; and Per Scholas, which was awarded $100,000 to train a hundred learners for high-growth technology careers.

Additional recipients include StartUptown, which was awarded $125,000 to build a robotics industry network of stakeholders to support business growth and job creation; the University of Pittsburgh, which will receive $250,000 to employ digital media curriculum, industry professionals, educational programs, workshops, projects, and internships with diverse high school students to grow and impact the region's creative industry; and Thrill Mill, Inc., which was awarded $250,000 to drive capital and create opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

"Helping to create good jobs in the Greater Pittsburgh area always has been our primary economic development goal," said Richard King Mellon Foundation director Sam Reiman. "And job training likewise has been a longtime foundation priority. But with our new strategic plan, we are more focused than ever on ensuring that the people and communities in the Greater Pittsburgh region will have every chance to obtain the good jobs we help to create — particularly, the people and communities that in the past too often were left behind. Our Economic Development program focuses on helping adults. And our new Economic Mobility program will pay dividends down the road, by making sure our children and youth have greater opportunity to command these jobs when they become adults."