TechConnect Bringing Teachers, Tech Leaders Together

The inaugural event took place last fall. (photo courtesy TechPoint Foundation For Youth)

An event being held this afternoon at Pike High School in Indianapolis aims to connect teachers with tech leaders from central Indiana to help identify a broad range of tech opportunities for students. Diana Nolting with Indianapolis-based Bluelock says the Pike Teacher TechConnect event will help teachers stay up to speed with what’s going on in the tech industry and integrate the skills companies are looking for into the classroom. 

Nolting, who helped create Teacher TechConnect, says jobs are changing so quickly in the tech industry, it is hard to keep up with the skills needed for those jobs. In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Nolting says one of the goals of the program is to inform teachers and students that a tech job doesn’t solely involve coding. 

"There are increasingly diverse job sets in tech companies and tech-enabled companies that don’t necessarily specifically require coding skills (such as) technical marketing, technical writing, data analysis, customer support, security and risk (and) technical sales," said Nolting. "These are all different types of technical jobs that teachers aren’t aware of. They’re not helping the kids understand what those roles are so they’re not considering them as future job opportunities."

Nolting says they’re seeing demand for the program outside of Pike High School and they are exploring options to expand to other school districts. The first Pike Teacher TechConnect event took place last fall with with a general focus on the broad range of tech careers. Thursday’s event will focus on future opportunities in IT cybersecurity.

The Teacher TechConnect event is a partnership among Bluelock, Nextech, Angie’s List Inc. (Nasdaq: ANGI), the TechPoint Foundation For Youth and the Pike High School Youth CareerConnect Program.