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Fortinet named Official Diversity & Inclusion/STEM Education Partner of the AJGA

<i>Partnership to elevate AJGA DE&I efforts along with the science of golf</i>
Fortinet Overlay

Braselton, GA – The American Junior Golf Association is excited to announce that Fortinet, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, is the new Official Diversity & Inclusion/STEM Education Partner of the AJGA.

As part of the new partnership, Fortinet will focus efforts within the AJGA on five main pillars:

  • Diversity Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE) Grant Scholarships
  • Diversity AJGA Internship Scholarships
  • Under-Represented Outreach Sponsors
  • Narrowing the Wealth Gap Support
  • Developing Tomorrow’s Engineers Together Support
We are very pleased to partner with the AJGA to advance diversity and inclusion in golf and expose students to STEM. This initiative adds to Fortinet’s Education Outreach program, which is designed to help build an inclusive and diverse security workforce and support individuals in reaching their full potential through partnerships with academia, governments and non-profits. It is our corporate social responsibility to provide training and education opportunities for underrepresented populations and our collaboration with AJGA will further build on this work through scholarships and grants.
Barbara Maigret, Global Head of Sustainability & CSR at Fortinet

Pillar one, diversity ACE Grant scholarships, will focus on closing the gender and diversity gap in golf by awarding scholarships to build more inclusivity in golf.

The AJGA internship is widely recognized in golf as the industry leader in diversity, equity, and the best entry point into the golf industry for people of all backgrounds. Pillar two will focus on just this, ensuring a diverse intern candidate pool of women, racial and ethnic minorities are selected annually.

Pillar three will support AJGA efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce as it mirrors our values as the leading junior golf association in the world. This will have a direct impact through sponsoring AJGA diversity outreach, including HBCU tournaments we conduct, The First Tee ‘Day in the Life’ program and at tournaments which highlight diversity through their hosts; Mariah Stackhouse, Harold Varner III, K.J. Choi and Sergio Garcia.

Pillar four is threefold – AJGA Interns, Junior Golfers and the AJGA’s ACE Grant. On the intern side the AJGA is committed to providing fair and equitable pay to our interns above and beyond minimum wage. On the membership front, the AJGA is committed to a three-year reduction of over $300,000 in membership and tournament fees to further remove financial barriers to access to earn exposure for college golf scholarships. The ACE Grant program continues to improve. In 2022, we added an equipment reimbursement up to $750 per player to limit or even close the golf club equipment gap. We work with existing sponsors in the equipment space with pricing in this effort.

Finally, to further the next generation of golf we aim to introduce them to careers on and off the golf course. Fortinet wants to bring the members face to face with the science of golf and make STEM learning fun, as Fortinet continues to provide opportunities within STEM to help diversify the tech and cybersecurity industry.

“We are excited to enhance our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion along with STEM education by working with a global leader in Fortinet,” said AJGA Chief Business Officer, Jason Etzen. “These initiatives are important to the AJGA and this announcement marks a milestone for us to further inspire underrepresented members and our future workforce to achieve at the highest level.”

The AJGA prides itself on its commitment to diversity, equity & inclusion in the golf space. Our DE&I mission statement is as follows:

The American Junior Golf Association is committed to creating an engaging, safe, and inclusive environment. We welcome people from all backgrounds and believe by embracing diverse perspective, we are better equipped to accomplish our mission of developing golf’s next generation.

Fortinet’s mission is to make possible a digital world that organizations can always trust. Fortinet delivers the most innovative, highest-performing network security fabric to secure and simplify organizations’ IT infrastructures.  Fortinet’s CSR initiative aim to diversify Fortinet’s industry by providing training resources for underrepresented populations, and this partnership is furthering these shared values with the AJGA to grow opportunities within the game of golf.

About Fortinet

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) makes possible a digital world that we can always trust through its mission to protect people, devices, and data everywhere. This is why the world's largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations choose Fortinet to securely accelerate their digital journey. The Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protections across the entire digital attack surface, securing critical devices, data, applications, and connections from the data center to the cloud to the home office. Ranking #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide, more than 565,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. And the Fortinet NSE Training Institute, an initiative of Fortinet's Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), provides one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry to make cyber training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com , the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.