Technology partnership brings opportunities to students at Virginia HBCUs
In an unprecedented effort to answer the demand for skilled labor in Virginia's booming technology industry, entrepreneur Mark Warner has established a partnership between the state, the area's technology companies, and the commonwealth's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The partnership aims to give underserved African American students the educational and experiential foundation they need to take advantage of the high-tech job opportunities currently available in the region.
The Virginia High Tech Partnership program was initiated this past February with twenty-five students from the five Virginia HBCUs. It is being run by the Collis-Warner Foundation, a family-owned philanthropic organization formed by Warner and his wife, Lisa Collins.
"In the growth of the Virginia economy, 63 percent is due to technology-related fields," says Jim Dyke, former Virginia Secretary of Education and partner with law firm McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe. Since 1995, nearly 300 companies have announced that they will build or expand facilities within the Virginia commonwealth, bringing with them $6 billion dollars and 30,000 new jobs. There were more jobs secured in the first seven months of 1998 than in all of 1997, generating $1.5 billion in capital investments and 28,000 new jobs.
A glaring feature of the high-tech boom that is currently taking place in Virginia, however, is its notable lack of African American participants.
African Americans are under-represented in the technology industry nationwide. According to a task-force report from the National Information Technology Workforce Convocation, only 6 percent of the professionals in the information technology arena are Black.
"The shortage of skilled technology workers threatens our economy," Warner said in an early press release.
In an effort to remedy the problem, this past summer, seventeen technology companies provided internships for computer science majors from Norfolk State University, Hampton University, Virginia State University, Virginia Union University, and St. Paul's College.
