Originally posted on Northeastern.edu, by Patrick Dann

Last month Northeastern University – Seattle hosted a program at the World Trade Center Seattle titled, Closing the Skills Gap: Collaboration and Innovation Leading to Change, which I was honored to moderate. Before the panel discussion, I wrote a blog post to outline the problem our region faces with a skills gap that yields thousands of unfilled jobs and just as many people without the desired qualifications to fill them.

The panel discussion was a valuable catalyst to thinking about how industries, government and higher education can work together to help companies find job seekers with the qualifications they need to be successful. The New York Times recently declared Seattle the new center of a tech boom, only further validating the fact that we have to do everything we can to educate individuals in order to fill that need.

The panel included, Mike Monroe, COO, Washington Technology Industry Association; State Representative Larry Seaquist, Chair of the House of Representatives Higher Education Committee; State Representative Chad Magendanz, member of the House of Representatives Higher Education Committee; and Dave Wallace, Research Unit Manager, Washington State Workforce Training Board.

Continue reading the article here.