INEZ — A Martin County School District technology team recently earned $100,00 in new student computers as part of the statewide K-12 Dataseam partnership. Technology coordinator Roscoe Mullins and technicians Joshua Horn and Alyssa Preece participated in the industry-standard technology support training.

Dataseam, an education and workforce development initiative supporting rural Kentucky districts, began in 2005, according to a statement from the district. The initiative provides student workstations as part of state and federal funding designed to address the “digital divide” many Kentucky K-12 districts face.

The Apple desktops earned as part of the training not only support advanced curriculum opportunities but also are part of a statewide computing grid providing number-crunching horsepower to the cancer research efforts of the University of Louisville’s Brown Cancer Center.

“Kentucky K-12 technology professionals support a variety of technology and needs for one of the Commonwealth’s largest employers, public education,” said Brian Gupton, Dataseam CEO. “The certifications these individuals are obtaining are improving our local IT workforces statewide, as well as providing opportunities to improve employment and advance professionally.”

Since 2005, over 200 individuals have been professionally certified to support Apple technologies in Kentucky. As a result, according to the statement, the state has the largest single cohort of Apple systems engineers in the United States.