I spent a few days this week working from our offices in Reston, Virginia.  I lived in Reston a few years ago, while working as director of Internet engineering in a large national telecom company.  The Reston, Herndon, Ashburn area is a center of both telecommunications and Internet operations for both the US and international communications industry.

During the visit I had several discussions with colleagues in our industry, and was re-introduced to the Northern Virginia Technology Council (http://www.nvtc.org/).  While those of us in the Los Angeles area have access to several technology-related organizations such as the SoCalTech, San Diego Software Industry Council, Tech Coast Venture Network - not to mention our own Convergence Technology Council of California, the NVTC adds the element of public thought leadership and even government technology lobby.

One part of the NVTC agenda piqued my interest.  This is a section of the "NVTC Techpac 2009 Legislative Agenda."

Provide More Highly Skilled Workers to Power Virginia's Technology Economy

The growth potential for Virginia's technology industry is limited by an insufficient number of qualified technology workers, and the education system is not graduating a sufficient number of people with degrees in math, science, engineering and technology-related fields.

• Revamp the system for accrediting teachers to address the statewide shortage of math and science teachers and to ensure all teachers have sufficient proficiency in math, science and technology.
• Incorporate industry-validated standards for knowledge regarding technology into the Virginia Standards of Learning and provide resources for all school systems to establish science- and technology-intensive centers of excellence.
• Consolidate Virginia's workforce programs and training initiatives and ensure we have strong business community participation and oversight. Virginia continues to operate inefficiently with more than 20 workforce programs spending over $300 million, spread among nine state agencies. Local workforce boards must be smaller in number, better reflect the need of local communities and in a position to make policy decisions on workforce issues.
• Grow Southwest Virginia's technology economy by expanding Virginia's "Return to Roots" program to encourage highly skilled workers to return to the region to live and work.
• Better align high school graduation requirements with university admissions requirements to make math and science requirements more rigorous, as has been done in 12 other states.

Having worked in the Reston area in the past, I was always impressed by the level of community involvement in bringing technology awareness to the area, as well as local government support in encouraging more high tech companies to base their operations in Northern Virginia.

Southern California is unique in the respect we have a very large organic technology community, which grew out of support for both the military/aerospace industries, as well as the entertainment industry.  We have great universities with outstanding science and technology programs, and have a robust venture capital community willing to fund innovative startups.

The biggest difference I have observed (this is just me - might be others who have a different or better view of the community), is that our local governments tend to focus their efforts on budget crisis, and protecting local bureaucracies, rather than focusing their efforts on reinforcing education and training needed to keep California ahead of the technology competition - whether it is from other American markets or from international markets.

While I have never been a big advocate of big government or government lobbies, maybe it is time to kick off a period of tech evangelism.  Maybe it is time for all of us to convince the media and local representatives this is not the time to act as victims, but it is the time to act as economic and educational hunters.  We want the LA, Orange County, San Diego, Ventura, and Santa Barbara region to accelerate our levels of innovation and creativity, and bring the center of the world's innovative brain power and tech development back to SoCal where it belongs.

As indicated in Virginia's legislative agenda, we need to expand on these ideas through lobby, and aggressively evangelize our need to:

• Bring highly qualified workers to the region
• Continue to develop educational programs that support science and technology
• Provide incentives for high tech companies to locate in the region
• Engage the business community in training, apprenticeship, and contribution to encourage young tech workers to continue their education and desire to work in high tech industries

Take a look at the http://www.nvtc.org/ website.  Download a few of their newsletters, and consider how some of their ideas could easily be improved in our region.  Southern California has the best minds and most innovative people in the world.  Let's keep that alive.