Posted on 03/11/2015 10:03:31 AM PDT by jacknhoo
Four Reasons the President’s TechHire Initiative Will Lead to a More Diverse Tech Sector
Yesterday the President launched TechHire, a timely initiative linking 20 communities and 300 employers to fill 120,000 tech jobs through accelerated training programs, such as coding bootcamps. TechHire was the last initiative I worked on before leaving the White House, so I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think it will improve the skills gap and develop a more diverse tech sector by addressing four critical areas:
· Increasing access to $100 Million in educational grants · Standardizing the way top coding bootcamps are evaluated · Modernizing hiring practices for 300 employers · Expanding the reach of tech meetups and coding bootcamps in 20 communities
1. $100 million in grants for people who are underrepresented in the tech sector
The average cost to attend a coding bootcamp is almost $10,000 for three months of training. While expensive and out of reach for many without the assistance of loans or grants, the return on investment is high.
According to the most recent survey of bootcamps from Course Report, graduating students immediately increased their annual income by 44% to $77,000. Yet, because most coding bootcamps are unaccredited, it’s hard to access student loans and grants to attend them. The President’s announcement of the $100 million H-1B grant competition by the Department of Labor, then, will significantly help reduce the financial barrier to attend coding bootcamps for people who are underrepresented in tech.
2. Ensuring a quality education, from California to New York
When people invest three months of time and $10,000, they want to compare their options, apples to apples, to make the right investment. Previously, it was hard to compare the employment and graduation outcomes between coding bootcamps. Yesterday that changed.
Ten of the top coding bootcamps in the country formed the New Economy Skills Training Association and wrote a letter to the President. In it, they committed to publishing standardized outcomes, verified by 3rd-party auditors, on an annual basis. This is an important step. It’s a step that means this nascent industry can build a trusted reputation and deliver quality, high-impact education for ALL Americans.
3. Adapting employer hiring practices for the latest tech training methods
Yesterday the President said, “If you can do the job, you should get the job.” It’s easy to see why he said this. If you look at most job postings for entry-level tech positions from top companies, they often require a bachelor’s degree — unintentionally discouraging qualified candidates from applying. While a bachelor’s degree is important and something I encourage everyone to get, oftentimes there are life situations that prevent good people with incredible talent from getting those degrees.
However, 300 employers, including Capital One and other big companies, committed to updating their hiring practices, which will allow them to tap into a larger, more diverse pool of talent. As the President said, “It doesn’t matter where you learned code, it just matters how good you are in writing code.” Following that same idea, Unitive, Gild and similar startups are already helping companies write job postings that encourage a more diverse application pool and evaluate people by their code, respectively. The President’s comments and the TechHire initiative will help drive that further into practice.
4. Expanding the reach of tech meetups and coding bootcamps across the country
Today, over half a million job openings are in tech. They aren’t limited to just San Francisco, New York or Austin, either. They’re all over the country in various industries — for example, in health, finance and manufacturing, among others.
With yesterday’s announcement, mayors and governors from 20 communities, including Louisville, St. Louis, and the state of Delaware are bringing together employers and forming local organizations to standardize employer skills requirements, recruit coding bootcamps and proactively recruit more women and underrepresented minorities to training and tech talent pipeline programs. There was a lot excitement from the nearly 2,000 city officials at the annual National League of Cities conference, where the speech took place. I wouldn’t be surprised if the amount of communities joining this effort doubled by the end of the year.
Achieving diversity that reflects America’s demographics
In a keynote address at Bryn Mawr, former President of the National Academy of Engineering Bill Wulf once said, “Every time we approach a design problem with a pale male team we run the risk of not finding the elegant solution.” He further explained, “If we don’t have a diverse workforce, we limit the set of life experiences that an engineering team will have and, consequently, we limit the creativity that could be brought to bear.”
As creative problem-solvers, we’re trying to find the simplest, most elegant solution. When faced with the daunting statistic that China is graduating 600,000 engineers annually to our 60,000, our leadership in tech and innovation will be seriously challenged. But it’s a challenge I think we can meet.
Diversity is America’s greatest asset. It’s our strategic advantage to power the most creative and impactful tech companies of the future. Yesterday’s commitments from mayors, coding bootcamps and employers is another step to enable our tech community to tap into a greater pool of talent that better represents the diversity of this country and reach our full potential.
The President’s announcement of the $100 million H-1B grant competition by the Department of Labor, then, will significantly help reduce the financial barrier to attend coding bootcamps for people who are underrepresented in tech.
My son is in the IT business, and this is nothing more than a plea from the tech companies with their Cronies on Capitol Hill and in the White House to help them CUT salaries and hire substandard foreigners.
Any time you see the word 'diversity', then know that Americans are going to get screwed.
And this the THE MOST RACIST comment I've seen in decades, including the stupid fraternity video from this week:
In a keynote address at Bryn Mawr, former President of the National Academy of Engineering Bill Wulf once said, “Every time we approach a design problem with a pale male team we run the risk of not finding the elegant solution.”
The above isn't just a 'comment'. This is a plan to actively discriminate against whites and males, AND it's deriding them for being white and male. And it's a plan to take away their jobs and give them to someone else.
I despise these people.
And mean while no trading money for plumbers, carpenters, electrians and other trades.
Sadly, I’m salaried.
Overrepresented in the guest worker programs though.
Not if you are a consultant!
I don't despise them. I'm glad for them. I hope they keep it up.
I will run rings around them, and profit heavily.
Positive Thinker!
How dare you interject opportunity and positivity into my dejection and anger!?
:>)
"H-1B" = "foreign nationals" + "contract labor" = "cheaper to hire"
"people who are underrepresented in tech" = "non-white + non-male".
Integration of all of the above:
The Impostor is using public moneys to promote the displacement of Caucasian Americans IT/IS workers by the importation and training-up of "people of color" and women from foreign countries "to do the work that Americans unfairly do because of white privilege".
He's going to try to throw the entire IT industry into a "don't hire whites" campaign.... Remember "nicht verkaufen bei Jueden"? That came right before "Arbeit macht frei".
0bama and his crazy administration should be promoting AMERICAN CITIZENS to fill these positions instead of worrying about people who are underrepresented in tech, AKA foreigners.
Tech moguls are only interested in the bottom line and the turkey in the WH is more than happy to help them out being 0bama could care less about Americans.
It’s a nice idea, but the expanded H-1B program will poison the effort. Again, obama pretends to care for domestic Americans while plotting against them.
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ETA20120365.htm
Some clarification on what H1-B refers to in this article
It says that it applies to foreign workers. Are you seeing anything different?
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Sounds good.
Hopefully ii does what it says it does/////// These days I am cynical and figure the real mission is to create more “helper” and “educator” type gov’t jobs without really helping those they are training to take software/coding jobs that would otherwise be going to H1-Bs imported from India
It trains American workers....if it lives up to its billing
Smart move.
This will be an interesting society as boomer whites retire.
Power struggles produce nothing but struggle. And violence.
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