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.
