Software developers unite!

There’s an effort underway to see what it takes to create a vibrant software industry in Hawaii. I recently attended and wrote about the Software Skills Panel Forum, put on by the Workforce Development Council and the High Tech Development Corporation, whose goal is: To establish software development industry Skills Panels that will develop statewide strategic action plans to accomplish the following:

• Promote and grow the State of Hawaii as a center for software development;
• Educate government and community leaders about the importance of the software industry to the local economy and its need for a quality workforce base;
• Work with educational institutions to ensure our local software workforce is being prepared for the jobs of tomorrow; and
• Offer solutions and assist with implementations of initiatives that grow Hawaii’s software industry.

As well intended as this might all sound, if you are a software developer or any part of the software ecosystem, i.e. user interface designers, coders, engineers, testers or even end users, your voice needs to be heard. In last week’s forum, about 100 people got together and broke up into four subgroups: large business, small/startup business, experienced developer and new developer. The output of this forum should be some action items that groups like HTDC, WDC and policy makers can move on. The concern is that without a voice for the software developer community, the needs of the community will get diluted by competing agendas.

To chime in here is what you can do. Join the Techhui group: Innovation Economy Workforce Development. We’ll be tracking the results of the Skills Panel Forum, but more importantly, we’ll help make sure the recommendations that get put forth have legs. Also if you have ideas or comments, please share them here. Your voice is needed to create the momentum to carry this forward.