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Video: Digital Literacy, Part 13
Phil Bond
President and CEO
TechAmerica
December 19, 2010
MR. BOND: Digital literacy is fundamentally important to the companies that are members of TechAmerica. Let me tell you why. First of all, they employ over a million people in the state, so they’re constantly looking for new talent to fill those jobs. Secondly, we know that we need a greater pipeline of local talent in each of the states, but particularly in the large, tech savvy state of California. And so these leading companies who belong to our association have been very active working on policies and working at both the state and federal level to try to build that talent pipeline.
This project here in California could be absolutely critical to that, providing the kind of talent that can populate the entry level jobs, as well as start somebody on a career to the higher value add jobs. Ultimately, we need to have a citizenry that can really add value by knowing how to access and create and manage information in the information age, because we don’t want to compete with the rest of the world on wage. We want to be on the higher value add jobs, higher on the value pyramid. That means you have to start with a higher starting point, a higher base of knowledge. That’s exactly what this project is intended to do.
So the companies get employees, they get a future growth path, the individuals get a career path, and hopefully then we have more a vibrant economy here in California and all across the country.