Oprah Winfrey’s initiatives continue to create opportunities for the youth. With The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation, Winfrey launched a new scholarship program — The Oprah Winfrey Leaders Scholarship. According to People, the scholarship “will benefit students who have displayed both academic excellence and leadership within their respective communities.” “I am where I am today because of education and the support of teachers throughout my life,” Winfrey said in a statement. “I am honored to support these students who have shown high achievement in their academic studies, but more importantly a commitment to their communities.” To inaugurate the four-year program’s class, each of the 15 students selected were congratulated with a surprise virtual call from Winfrey herself earlier this summer. “I’m thrilled that there are young people like you in the world,” Winfrey shared in the call. “You are claiming your stake in the future and have done the work to prepare for a better life...
LinkedIn revealed earlier this year that a person is nine times more likely to get a job through a referral . The obvious question is if someone doesn’t have a big professional network, how can they break into getting a middle class job? A lack of social capital becomes a burden for job applicants who feel they have done everything “right” in their journey, yet struggle to secure a career opportunity. Thankfully there are programs whose purpose is to help people build professional networks, and learn technical and soft skills to get a great job. Climb Hire — founded by Nitzan Pelman in 2019 — is one of them. The Bay Area-based non-for-profit startup — funded by Eric Schmidt, a former CEO of Google — creates economic opportunity for hidden talent. They train people to become Salesforce administrators . Salesforce is a massive $16 billion company and according to the IDC , they are projecting over 3.3 million new jobs will be created by the end of 2022. Gaining technical skills is an...