Future Ready Oregon Technology Industry Consortium to Address Equitable Opportunities for Oregon’s High-tech Workforce
Salem, OR – The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) is pleased to announce the launch of the Future Ready Oregon Technology Industry Consortium, which convened for its first quarterly meeting this month. The consortium brings together public, private, and community-based partners statewide to identify barriers to equitable participation in Oregon’s high-tech workforce.
The August meeting featured a panel of community-based organizations from across the state. Representatives addressed the talents that diverse communities bring to the high-tech workforce, and the challenges community members face in navigating related education, training, hiring, and professional advancement opportunities. These insights will inform the consortium’s immediate objective: developing a strategic policy and funding framework to help address high-tech workforce gaps.
Launched by the HECC and Workforce and Talent Development Board (WTDB) in June 2023, the consortium engages representatives from industry, labor, education, and community-based organizations in assessing statewide high-tech workforce needs, skills standards, and career pathways. The consortium meets quarterly, and meetings are open to the public.
Skip Newberry, president and CEO at the Technology Association of Oregon; Lisa Skari, president at Mt. Hood Community College; and K S Venkatraman, senior director of artificial intelligence computing at NVIDIA Corporation are chairing the consortium’s executive leadership team.
Future Ready Oregon is a $200 million package of investments that advances an equitable workforce system by supporting the education, training, and resources needed to access good-paying jobs, and includes the establishment of three Industry Consortia. Consortia provide forums through which industry, education, and community representatives can develop recruitment, retention, and career advancement strategies to expand and diversify the workforce in key sectors of Oregon’s economy—healthcare, manufacturing, and technology. Members are charged with identifying ways industry can innovate, implement, and co-invest in workforce and talent development strategies that center economic mobility and the needs of historically marginalized and underserved communities.
The second quarterly meeting of the Technology Industry Consortium will be held in October 2023, with details forthcoming on the HECC website. For more information, contact FutureReadyOregon@hecc.oregon.gov, or click here to subscribe to the Industry Consortia public meeting notices.
|
