Autonomic Partners with Techtonica to Help Women and Non-Binary Adults Embark on Silicon Valley Careers

Autonomic, creators of the Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC), the first open, cloud-based platform for connected vehicles, today announces its sponsorship of Techtonica’s apprenticeship program. Techtonica, a non-profit organization focused on bridging Silicon Valley’s large gap in workforce diversity, has created an apprenticeship program that strives to bridge this gap by assisting women and non-binary adults with low incomes to break into the high-tech workforce via skill-building boot camps, job placement, and real-world mentorship. 

Through its apprenticeship program, Techtonica takes aim at structural and social obstacles to obtaining and succeeding in Silicon Valley careers of women and non-binary adults of low-income with a six-month boot camp that extends into job placement and ongoing mentorship. Techtonica apprentices are chosen from an applicant pool which undergoes a rigorous application process that includes HTML/CSS workshops, a JavaScript workshop, a code challenge, a long application, pairing, and interviews by staff and board members. Underscoring the demand for programs such as this, Techtonica accepts approximately 8% of its applicants to each of its apprenticeship cohorts. Successful applicants receive living stipends, laptops, and more than 950 hours of full-time, project-based, collaborative training on HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

“It is absolutely essential that traditionally marginalized groups have direct access to job-placement programs and mentorship if we want to change things,” explained Techtonica Founder & CEO, Michelle Glauser. “Autonomic clearly understands this and, since their engineering team is working on some of the most interesting challenges in transportation today, we’re thrilled to help them move mobility forward with our graduates.”

This summer, a graduate from Techtonica’s apprenticeship program will join Autonomic’s engineering team in Palo Alto and have the opportunity to contribute directly to the TMC platform. The TMC connects the disparate elements of the mobility ecosystem -- including connected vehicles, mass transit, city infrastructure, and service providers -- to orchestrate a safer, more efficient, and sustainable transportation network. The brand-agnostic platform is the first to unite the different parties involved in creating next-generation transportation services with the goal of transforming how people move around cities.

“Techtonica has created an effective and laudable program to help those who are often overlooked in the workforce, and especially in the tech industry,” remarked Gavin Sherry, CEO of Autonomic. “We are proud to be able to support their efforts and are pleased to welcome their graduates to Autonomic.” 

The news follows an eventful 2018 for Autonomic. Beginning in February 2018, with their acquisition by Ford Smart Mobility, LLC, Autonomic announced a series of partnerships across the transportation ecosystem, including the provision of routing and mapping services for any vehicle connected to the TMC via rideOS integration, and the planned ability for fleet managers to connect their vehicles anywhere in the world via low-cost satellites via Swarm Technologies. Autonomic also expanded globally by partnering with Alibaba Cloud to bring TMC’s benefits to the Chinese market.

About Autonomic
Autonomic is the first open cloud platform for connected vehicles, powering the automotive digital ecosystem. As the only company to create the world’s foremost transportation and mobility platform for connected vehicles -- called the Transportation Mobility Cloud -- Autonomic gives car makers and developers the infrastructure to build customer experiences for connected vehicles.

Founded in 2016, the Autonomic team hails from companies like Xtreme Labs - acquired by Pivotal - and Amazon. Together, they architected large-scale cloud computing platforms and built distribution databases for well-known consumer mobile apps such as Tinder and Facebook. The company is set to usher in a new era of connected vehicles and transform how people move around cities. To learn more about Autonomic, visit autonomic.ai. 

About Techtonica
Founded in 2016 by Michelle Glauser, Techtonica is an apprenticeship program based in San Francisco that partners with tech companies to provide free, intensive tech training and job placement specifically for Bay Area women and non-binary adults who have low incomes. Learn more at techtonica.org.
 

Contact Information

Maggie Philbin

Associate Director

VSC for Autonomic

autonomic@vscconsulting.com