The Memo: Coders of the Future and Technical Talent
Happy PokéMonday everyone.
Hope your Pokemon catches have been going well — mine have. Last week I traveled a bit around the country with an American friend. We both visited the Glacier Lagoon and the Golden circle, great places. Sadly, neither had any cool Pokemon’s, which was quite the disappointment. However, Iceland’s squares and public parks are full of life these days, thanks to Pokemon Go.
Pokemon part is over, on to the Memo.
Coders of the future and technical talent
I ran across an update about the newest grants from the non-profit Coders of the Future. I hadn’t heard about this initiative before and thought it was worth mentioning. The main reason is that lack of technical talent is one of the constraints of the Icelandic tech scene.
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Around Startup Iceland, I had the opportunity to talk to Mark Solon, managing partner at Techstars. His concerns were exactly these – lack of human resources. When I explained that Iceland has one of the most educated workforce in the world, he waived it away. The grees don’t matter; he was talking about developers.
This reminded me of a short piece by Jökull Sólberg, founder of Takumi. In it, he mentions digital product design as the most difficult recruitment in Reykjavik. He also points out that there’s little education available for soon-to-be digital designers.
We as a community need to put pressure on the educational system to push technical skills. We’re obviously doing it already, just think of this as a gentle reminder.
What are you doing to foster the development of technical talent? Let me know.
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