Younger generations are on the cutting edge of technology. They know which new app is hot, they are glued to their smartphones and groan when parents complain about screen time. Yet, shockingly few of them are trying to start careers in the tech sector.
What gives? It should be a match made in digital heaven.
When it comes to job growth, startup technology companies are responsible for a disproportionally large number of new jobs. The biggest challenge for young tech firms: finding the talent they need.
Here at PQA, we are trying to encourage change by supporting various youth programs whose focus is to introduce various technology careers for a positive and encouraging attitude for this field.
Most recently, we are supporting App Camp for Girls in Vancouver, BC & Invigorate in Fredericton, NB.
Invigorate runs leadership and innovation programming for the top high-school students in each grade, within a given community. The summer bootcamps run for one week and the goal of each program is that these students will build and implement a solution to a community problem. This could be anything from a school club to help tackle the issue of bullying, to creating a web platform to connect students to scholarship options.
We are supporting this effort by supplying them with part of our Fredericton office space for their boot-camp program.
App Camp For Girls seeks to address the gender imbalance in technology professions by inspiring middle-school age girls with a broad introduction to the process of app development, from brainstorming and designing ideas to building and pitching their apps. They believe that the experience of creating an app that runs on a device in one week can spark the enthusiasm that will propel girls to pursue further technology education.
We have provided two PQA professional team members to mentor, present and provide mutual support in their endeavors to advance in the field of software development & testing.
We have a lot of work to do to bridge the awareness gap about career opportunities in the tech sector.
Let’s act to turn our youth loose on the ever growing tech sector. It will benefit us and our economy for generations to come.