OPINION: An update from Rep. Ingraham
On January 31, 2014 I had the opportunity to attend the 39th Annual Economic Seminar presented by Northwestern Energy and the Bureau of Business & Economic Research.
The Bureau of Business and Economic Research has been providing information about Montana’s state and local economies for more than 50 years. It is housed on the campus of the University of Montana-Missoula. The Bureau is the research and public service branch of the School of Business Administration.
On an ongoing basis, the Bureau analyzes local, state, and national economies, provides annual income, employment and population forecasts and conducts extensive research on factors impacting our economies such as: forest products, manufacturing, health care and agriculture.
While the presentation did cover many factors impacting Montana’s economic outlook, it made note of a strong financial year in 2013 for Montana’s agriculture as well as improvements in Montana’s manufacturing industries, forest products industry, Montana’s housing market, as well as a promising outlook for Montana’s oil industry. It also included a subject that caught my attention, presented by the luncheon keynote speaker Greg Gianforte, and I want to pass that information along to you. It addressed how entrepreneurship is creating high paying jobs. I believe entrepreneurship holds the key to unlocking some of the challenges our young people are encountering as they look at what tomorrow’s job markets will be for them.
Speaker Gianforte, founder of RightNow Techologies of Bozeman, gave a first-hand account of Montana companies potential for using entrepreneurship to create more high-wage jobs in our state. He shared the success story of RightNow Technologies, one such entrepreneurship venture which created high paying jobs in Montana.
RightNow became Bozeman’s largest commercial employer and the only publicly traded Technology Company in the state. RightNow had more than 1,100 employees with an average wage of $86,000. In 2012 this company was acquired by Oracle for more than $1.8 million, not bad for a company whose beginning in 1997 started in a spare bedroom.
In looking forward to the next 20 years, Mr. Gianforte is convinced that the high-tech industry represents the largest single opportunity for Montana to create the most number of high-paying jobs for all Montana communities. One primary reason high-tech is such an opportunity for Montana is that the Internet removes geography as a constraint. Previously Montana has been too remote to effectively participate in certain industries, but not so with the high-tech industry. In high-tech businesses, innovation is king!
Creating more high-tech and high-tech manufacturing jobs will attract workers and create much needed opportunities for our young Montanans’ to enter into a job market with high paying wages, while being able to remain in Montana. Educating our young Montanans in the field of high-tech is the key to filing those positions that are created by entrepreneurs. Those high paying jobs will be available to our students through education, education in the fields related to computer science – such as coding and programming.
The software development industry provides great opportunity for Montanans and coding is the foundational skill used in many of the high tech professions. Coding is used in many professions, such as research design, user experience, entrepreneurship and music.
In fact, we have more high paying programming jobs in Montana than computer science graduates. Currently, both Montana State University and the University of Montana only produce about 14% of the Computer Science graduates needed to fill the jobs which are available now.
In looking forward to the future and to encourage high school students to get interested in computer science as a career to fill high tech and high-tech manufacturing jobs, Mr. Gianforte and Rob Irizarry of Startup Bozeman co-founded CodeMontana, whose vision is to give every Montana High School student exposure to software development training with the hope that more will pursue a college degree in computer science.
CodeMontana is for any high schooled student enrolled in a public or private school, or is being homeschooled and currently residing in the state of Montana. There is no fee to join and there is no cost to the student for the first 90 days. The curriculum provides modules, that when completed, the students will learn about computers and software development, with hopes of peaking their interest for pursuing more in the field of computer science
Once the student has completed the curriculum modules within the 90 days, there are other free resources on the web that can help them go further : Alice.org – an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game or a video to share on the web; CodeAcademy.Com – learning a specific programming language like Java, PHP or Python; KhanAcademy.org – courseware that teaches about programming; Montana Tech CodeMontana Scholarship – complete the first four CodeMontana modules and have at least a 24 on your ACT and you are eligible to apply for a $4000.00 scholarship to attend Montana Tech to study Computer Science; Montana Tech REAL Scholarship – complete these on-line modules and earn up to $1,200.00 in tuition at Montana Tech where you can earn a degree in computer science; and, PluralSight – an online curriculum to help professional software development people help their kids learn how to program.
High tech will play a large role in the future of Montana jobs for our students and I hope that our students will go to CodeMontana.Org and take look at what Code Montana has to offer and give it a try as a place to begin in this brave new world of high tech jobs!
Now it’s your turn to “Keep in Touch” by contacting me regarding your questions and/or concerns. I can be reached via e-mail at pathd13@blackfoot.net, or call me at 827-4652 or by mail at P.O. Box 1151, Thompson Falls, Montana 59873.