By Marisol Villarreal
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – UTRGV is teaming up with the RGV Partnership Foundation to conduct free digital literacy trainings for regional businesses, starting in mid-August.
The training will be funded by a $25,000 grant from the AT&T Foundation.
The grant was announced July 19 at a press conference held at the UTRGV Community Engagement & Student Success Building (ECESS) in Edinburg.
The UTRGV Small Business Development Center and the university’s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center will collaborate with the RGV Partnership to teach basic digital literacy to area business owners.
The RGV Partnership is a business-friendly nonprofit organization that encourages collaboration among the Valley’s four counties – Starr, Hidalgo, Willacy and Cameron.
“This will help business owners who have very little knowledge about the internet and the services it can provide to move their business in the right direction,” said Veronica Gonzales, senior vice president for UTRGV Governmental and Community Relations.
Gonzales said the trainings will provide valuable information to business owners so they can have a basic understanding of how to use the internet and how to avoid being hacked online.
The in-person trainings, available in both English and Spanish, will focus on communities that have struggled to understand navigating the internet or that have been afraid of engaging online, said Linda Ufland, director of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Commercialization at UTRGV.
“We want to make sure that all of these communities have the opportunity to understand that it can be safe, and that there are tools and resources for small businesses that we are able to share with them,” she said.
For more information on the digital literacy trainings and how to register, contact the UTRGV Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center at 956-882-4119.
ABOUT UTRGV
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.
UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.
