Arizona Western College joins U.S.-India workforce partnership lab

Arizona Western College has landed one of just three U.S. seats in a new U.S.-India Partnership Lab, a move that could reshape how Yuma County trains workers for manufacturing, logistics and artificial intelligence jobs over the next year.

The yearlong initiative is led by the Association of Community College Trustees and funded by the Cognizant Foundation. It pairs each selected U.S. college with an Indian partner institution and requires AI training as a core part of the work. The program also includes fully funded travel to India, where students and college leaders will visit universities and work directly with partner schools.

For Yuma, the immediate value is practical: AWC said it plans to build curriculum around manufacturing, logistics, predictive analytics, supply chain management and smart manufacturing. Those are fields that matter in a county where employers often need workers who can move between hands-on production, technical systems and technology-driven operations. Reetika Dhawan has said the college wants to develop the curriculum jointly with international partners, a sign the effort is aimed at direct workforce use rather than a symbolic exchange.

That matters in a local economy where even a modest expansion in training capacity can influence whether employers hire locally, upgrade operations or look to grow in the region. Dhawan has said Yuma has about 10 small manufacturing firms, and she has pointed to the need for more higher-education investment in rural communities. Her own background gives the effort added weight: she was born and educated in India before coming to Arizona for a short teacher exchange and staying in Yuma.

Arizona Western College said the partnership is meant to advance workforce-aligned programs, applied AI solutions and global talent pathways. The collaboration will unfold over a year through virtual and in-person work, with partner institutions expected to design and implement an AI-enabled workforce project and a long-term global partnership framework. The college said the goal is to create pathways into high-wage, high-demand careers.

The lab is part of a broader ACCT effort that began in March 2025 with two pilot colleges. Pierce College in Washington was paired with Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University for disaster management, while Wor-Wic Community College in Maryland was paired with Symbiosis Skills and Professional University for cybersecurity and STEM. ACCT said those fields grew out of an earlier India-U.S. Workforce Partnership Workshop and its Action Agenda.

AWC’s selection comes as the college keeps expanding its workforce footprint across western Yuma County. The Future48 Workforce Accelerator opened in Wellton on May 6, and a Lightcast-backed study said AWC added almost $319.2 million to the incomes of La Paz and Yuma counties in fiscal year 2023-24. Together, the new India partnership and the college’s local training investments put AWC at the center of Yuma County’s push for better jobs, stronger employer pipelines and a more competitive regional economy.