A Charlotte workforce development group received a $400,000 grant today to launch a digital technology repair program that will help provide career opportunities to former inmates while providing technology services to low-income households.
City Startup Labs received a grant from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. The ReConnex program will train former inmates to repair digital devices like computers, phones and printers.
Henry Rock, founder of City Startup Labs, said the plan was to launch the social enterprise as a cooperative that would benefit employees.
“We hope that the team members who are building this company, running it and operating it will also get a share of the spoils. This will be a collaborative effort between City Startup Labs and the people who will be running the company,” Rock said.
The group plans to deploy ReConnex in one of the city’s six low-income opportunity corridors to provide residents with better access to technology support in their communities.
“We want to make sure they have local technical support,” Rock said. “We want to make sure they don’t have to go very far to get their devices up and running again.”
City Startup Labs hopes to launch ReConnex next year and expand to the city’s five other corridors.
The group, founded in 2014, provides vocational training to former inmates and shows them how to start businesses.
