Innovate Arkansas 3.0: Tech Talent Development
In case you missed it 2.0.....
Innovate Arkansas and its role in the development of future tech talent in Arkansas is the subject of this month's Innovate profile in the latest print edition of Arkansas Business.
Innovate Arkansas 3.0, as it were.
Arkansas has built a solid tech startup foundation, and leaders in the tech startup community believe the its next focus should be growing and retaining homegrown tech talent as well as recruiting it to Arkansas from outside the state.
Some progress has been made: The Iron Yard and 100 Girls of Code just a couple of examples.
IA, of course, is a program of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission in partnership with Winrock International.
A sample of the AB piece:
The tech talent that exists in Arkansas is good, just not deep: We need a longer bench. More coders and developers are needed to staff the tech startups emerging organically and from programs such as the ARK Challenge accelerator, created with federal funds from the Economic Development Administration, which IA applied for and secured in 2012...
While most visitors to Arkansas leave pleasantly surprised at what they find here, Arkansas can’t import enough talent to keep up with its tech startup growth. Like South Carolina, Arkansas needs an infusion of homegrown talent. Lacking the high-tech resources of hotbeds such as Silicon Valley, Austin or the Research Triangle in North Carolina, growing it — and keeping local talent at home — is crucial to future growth.
Full story here.
Innovate Arkansas -- Nurturing and developing talent at a tech startup near you...