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Successful Entrepreneur Paul Cummings & Foundation Leader Cordell Carter Team Up to Launch TechTown

Chattanooga, Tennessee is Ground Zero for the biggest technology learning initiative ever undertaken. Successful businessman Paul Cummings and foundation leader Cordell Carter are teaming up to invest $750 million to build 200 TechTown centers around the world. Perhaps most astonishingly, they plan to reach their ambitious goal in under 10 years!

Opening in June 2015, the first TechTown will be located in Chattanooga, with other centers in Seattle, Washington DC, and New Orleans close behind.  TechTown's core curriculum includes Motion, Design, 3D Printing, Robotics, and Circuitry.  TechTown is designed for kids of all ages, skill levels, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Paul Cummings is a Caucasian "good ol' boy" from Louisiana who has achieved tremendous business success, and Cordell Carter is a cosmopolitan African-American with a Law degree (Notre Dame) and a Masters degree in Public Policy (Carnegie Mellon) who has worked around the globe.  They make a seemingly unlikely duo, except for the fact that each considers himself first and foremost an educator, and they both possess an evangelist's zeal for improving the lives of children around the world.

Susanne Burnham was the Executive Producer of Start it Up from October of 2014 to August of 2015. She is a graduate of The Company Lab’s Accelerator. She is the Founder and CEO of Click Click Boom, a graduate of the University of Georgia and a U.S. Army Veteran (Desert Storm). She launched her career in the mobile tech industry in 2009, and in 2012 relocated to Chattanooga because of EPB’s fiber optic network and to participate in the City’s growth as a tech and startup hub.
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