Marketing 2 min read

Despite HQ2 Cancellation, Amazon Will Invest in NYC Education

Amazon is walking away from their HQ2 project, but is it a loss for New York | Lukas Kloeppel / Pexels

Amazon is walking away from their HQ2 project, but is it a loss for New York | Lukas Kloeppel / Pexels

Amazon announced early on Thursday, that it would not open its NYC HQ2. This came after large-scale opposition from citizens and politicians in the proposed Queens campus location.

Despite the withdrawal, Amazon claims that it still plans to follow-through with educational initiatives originally planned for New York-area colleges and high schools.

image of the four pillars of AWS Educate for article Despite HQ2 Cancellation, Amazon Will Invest in NYC Education
AWS Educate is a global initiative to boost interest in and availability of cloud studies. | Slideshare

Amazon Maintains NYC Education Commitment

The HQ2 deal had promised to bring 25,000 jobs to NYC in exchange for up to $1.5-billion USD in tax breaks and grants. However, it also included Amazon investing in local colleges and high schools.

These initiatives included working with Amazon’s Future Engineer and AWS Educate programs.

Specifically for NYC education, Amazon promised to support computer science classes for more than 130 NYC-area high schools. The programs would have been in all five of NYC’s boroughs. In fact, more than 30 schools located in Queens would have received aid.

In addition, Amazon said it would support NYC education by creating cloud certificate programs for area colleges including:

  • State University of New York (SUNY)
  • LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC)
  • City University of New York (CUNY)

Tech Leaders Mourn Loss of Potential Investment

Despite news that Amazon will still maintain these NYC education initiatives, the company has not specified to what extent they will honor these promises. It won’t function as a direct-to-Amazon pipeline as it could have. But the programs will still produce tech-savvy professionals for the tech world.

Other leaders in the neighborhood remain dissatisfied with the loss of HQ2 and tech resources. Due to a loud minority, many feel that NYC has given up a great opportunity.

Julie Samuels, operator of the nonprofit Tech:NYC, laments the loss of thousands of jobs. The incubator hosts other companies including General Assembly and Etsy.

Additionally, Jake Schwartz, General Assembly CEO, referred to the cancellation as a “self-own” for NYC, according to a statement in The Verge.

There is no news yet on how Amazon will honor these commitments or a new location for its campus.

Read More: Amazon Makes Alexa Skill Blueprints Fully Public

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Juliet Childers

Content Specialist and EDGY OG with a (mostly) healthy obsession with video games. She covers Industry buzz including VR/AR, content marketing, cybersecurity, AI, and many more.

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