The first class of America’s Workforce Academy (AWA) has graduated, and they’re headed to Meta construction sites to help build America’s future.
Nearly every major industry in the US is desperate to hire more skilled workers. But what’s been missing is a pathway linking America’s workers to America’s needs. We designed AWA, Meta’s free training program, to bridge that gap.
AWA provides four weeks of hands-on training and Meta covers travel and lodging expenses for participants. After graduation, a job with a Meta partner is already waiting for them.
“You can come into the program with no prior data center experience and be able to, after you finish, go into the workforce. [These students] will get promotions and become leaders — they’ll become foremen, superintendents, safety project managers. They can become engineers, coders, estimators. There’s so many different paths that they can take from what they’re learning here, and literally change their future.”
— Marcos, AWA Trainer
Here are a few things we heard from our inaugural graduating class:
Fiber Tech Training Graduates
Laniya, 22, Iowa
Laniya first learned about AI infrastructure while working as a data center custodian. Watching fiber technicians inspired her to start a new journey in a higher-paying job with more stability.
“They literally pay for the training. They make sure you’re eating. The transportation is provided — you can be coming from California, they’ll pay for that flight. It’s perfect.”
After her acceptance to AWA, Laniya took her first-ever flight and arrived in Indianapolis to start the program. Then, she learned how to build servers and lay fiber cords, which helps data centers run smoothly.
“[The program] makes me feel amazing. Like I’m alive. I feel like I’m doing a lot more for the world.”
Laniya credited her instructors for her success in completing the program, and now she’s aiming to become an advanced technician within a year. She’s heading back home to start work as a fiber technician at a Meta data center.
Ethan, 26, Indiana
Ethan, who previously worked in retail sales, wanted more upward mobility so he looked for job opportunities in the tech field. The problem? Like many Americans, he simply couldn’t afford to quit his job and train for a new role.
“The more that we learn about how the physical infrastructure works, the more we can impact the future generations. We have a lot of materials. We have a lot of plans. We just don’t have the hands to build them.”
AWA put his mind at ease because it paid him to train and gave him a career path he had long hoped for.
“I’ve always wanted to do something big. I don’t know what that is yet, but I know that this is the program that I need to be in in order to discover that.”
Through the program, he learned how to build data center infrastructure, and he plans to expand his technician skills by learning more about networking and security.
Our shared future depends on a highly skilled workforce — one that rises to the challenge of building and maintaining the complex systems that power innovation. AWA’s fiber technician and generalist construction training programs are doing just that. With graduations now happening every week, we look forward to welcoming more AWA graduates, and to building a future that’s for everyone.”Learn more about AWA and the application process here. To keep up with all things AWA, follow the program on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Linkedin, and X.