Microsoft will invest $1.5 million in the Bridge Accelerator program in Juárez to help expand companies in the manufacturing sector on both sides of the border, Microsoft President Brad Smith announced at an El Paso event Monday.


The investment is intended to grow manufacturing supply chain companies in El Paso and Juárez over 3 years as part of the Microsoft TechSpark program that started in El Paso last year.


“We decided if we’re going to fully invest in El Paso, it really makes sense to invest in Juárez as well. As everyone who lives in this community appreciates, this is not just one city on one side of the border, it’s really two cities that are part of a binational, bilingual and bicultural community,” Smith said after an event celebrating the new initiative at the EPIC Railyard on the edge of Downtown El Paso.


Smith was joined by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Chihuahua Gov. Javier Corral and El Paso-area business and community leaders.


 “When it comes to creating new technology and showing people how to use it, you create a critical mass of people more quickly to bring companies from El Paso and Juarez and let them learn from each other,” Smith said. “One of the speakers at our event today put it well: You learn the most when you learn across boundaries.”


The Bridge Accelerator program will work with 75 existing companies from Juárez or El Paso in the manufacturing supply-chain sector over the next three years, beginning in January, said Rick Mora, chief executive officer and founder of the Technology Hub in Juarez. The accelerator program teaches companies how to use new technologies and deals with other business aspects to help them expand, he said.


The aim is to help companies in this area get part of the $39 billion worth of supplies going to the manufacturing industry in the El Paso-Juarez area, of which only 2 percent is sourced from this region, Mora said.


Mora said he met Smith last year when he came to El Paso to introduce the TechSpark program in El Paso. Smith then went to Juarez last fall and Microsoft agreed to do a pilot accelerator program, which ended in July. The pilot resulted in the expansion of five supply-chain companies from El Paso and five from Juarez, and created 33 new jobs, Mora said.


Heather Wilson, president of the University of Texas at El Paso, said after Smith's presentation Monday that the Border Accelerator program will help UTEP graduates by creating more jobs in this area.


Microsoft also has been hiring students from UTEP to work at the company, 


Wilson noted. 


Microsoft last year picked El Paso as one of six areas in the United States to be in the company's TechSpark economic development program. The program has now been expanded to include Juárez, Smith said.


Last year, Smith said a "signature TechSpark project" for El Paso would be selected later. Monday, he implied the Border Accelerator program is that project.


The $1.5 million going to the accelerator program is the single largest investment made in the El Paso-Juarez TechSpark program so far, but Microsoft has invested "tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars" in education efforts in El Paso as part of TechSpark, Smith said.


Microsoft's Technology and Literacy in Schools program is providing computer science education to 326 students in 19 El Paso high schools, Smith reported. 


TechSpark's aim, Smith said in an online Microsoft blog, is "to make the El Paso-Juarez region the leader of advanced manufacturing, advanced logistics and business services, and ensure the people here have access to the digital skill that will be needed in the future."