This year at ASU+GSV I absorbed a lot from some amazing thought leaders including workforce development folks, charter schools, edTech founders, and representatives from DC including the US Department of Education, Labor, and Economic Development. I met with some of the biggest foundations that provide philanthropic support for innovation in education. And just generally speaking I reconnected with a lot of folks doing amazing work in the workforce development space.
I did not seek into the LinkedIn party… But did pretend to not be the dad from the suburbs and spent a bit of time after-hours at the Trancend Fund party and got to meet founders that ended up winning the pitch competition.
I came away fried from three days on my feet and so much social interaction in 3d. But a week later I am energized to get out and take action with all the new connections I made. Many of them were just serendipitous connections made while wandering between discussions.
ASU+GSV was my first big event in the past two years and many more folks were in attendance than I thought. I think people are ready to get back out there.
If there is one thing I would like to see improve it would be having a wider variety of opinions on some of the panels. Even though they make it clear which panels are sponsored, in many cases those conversations didn’t highlight the wide variety of thought around the topic and only focused on a narrow viewpoint. The recipe on some panels seemed to be Moderator (sponsor), community-based organization, funder, and a big company who had all done X together.
There were are few very memorable exceptions including the panel of justice-involved individuals that filmed a RoadTrip Nation episode and helped me to better understand some of the challenges with re-entry. This is a cause I am eager to support.
Many of the conversations this year shifted towards dual enrollment, stackable credentials, and upskilling for career readiness instead of college readiness. This was a welcome trend and I think it shows that educators are finally starting to catch up with what the industry has been begging for: highly skilled talent, vs folks that are book smart.
One theme that I heard a lot was that “the money is coming”, but it remains to be seen if community-based organizations and those in workforce development will actually get access to capital without the restrictions that often make it not worth applying for.
All and all if you missed it this year, and you plan to do work in the apprenticeship space, mark your calendar for spring of 2023. This is an event that can strengthen the connections it takes to be successful.
If you like what you read please subscribe, and if you want to know a bit more about the work that Creating Coding Careers is doing in this space please check out this recent podcast that dropped from my good friend Andrew Baines.
