WGU Roadshow Highlights Importance of Tech Education
With three roadshow stops, WGU’s School of Technology (WST) joins local communities in advancing access to technology education.
WGU’s School of Technology leaders recently traveled to Boston, Houston and San Francisco to celebrate the milestone of 50,000 IT graduates and to connect with industry leaders, business partners, students and alumni. The roadshow was a great opportunity for them to listen and to understand the demands of the IT workforce as they work to keep programs relevant.
The first stop was in Houston, Texas, where activities included an alumni event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, attendance and booth at the AfroTech Conference, meetings with business executives, and an Axios thought leadership dinner to discuss the “State of Play of Cybersecurity in Houston.” WGU Regional Vice President Linda Battles and WGU alumna Stacey Laurent participated in a TV segment on KHOU’s “Great Day Houston” aimed at encouraging more women to enter tech fields and to promote WGU’s $5,000 cybersecurity scholarship. The roadshow activities offered the chance for leaders and faculty to strengthen the unique community WGU already fosters in Texas.
Next, they traveled to San Francisco, California. The stop aligned with the Latinas in Tech conference, reaching an underrepresented community in the tech workforce. Events included WGU participation on Latinas in Tech panels about cybersecurity and IT education, an interview with WST’s Senior Vice President Paul Bingham and Program Mentor Renee Rodriguez about WGU’s mission to open pathways to opportunity for tech careers, and another interview with Bingham and Associate Dean Mike Morris with VentureBeat about training the next wave of cyber defenders to handle AI threats. In addition, the San Francisco Chronicle covered WST’s thought leadership dinner, moderated by Program Mentor Camille Valentine, about overcoming impostor syndrome and leading with confidence in technology careers in the age of AI.
At another San Francisco event, 30 WGU community partners—including TikTok, Calbright College, the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Creating Coding Careers, Kern Health Systems, Hack the Hood and more—attended a meeting for Tech Impactors, an alumni-driven group seeking to address the persistent barriers to entry and career growth faced by underrepresented populations in the tech sector. During this event, local organizations Mission Bit and TechSF gave presentations on the good work they are doing to address local barriers to tech degrees, and WST alumna Jane Chung and Bingham received commendations from the City of San Francisco for their work to expand access.
Boston, Massachusetts, was the third road stop of the year, perhaps the most distant point from WGU’s Utah headquarters. It was the perfect place to join an already robust higher education conversation about technology, to showcase the difference WGU makes in preparing talent to succeed in IT professions and in helping to change lives for the better. The week commenced with a presentation by Bingham at the Corporate Learning Network’s Chief Learning Officer Exchange on Strategic Agility in the Age of Disruption. His presentation was just one part of a day centered on innovative solutions that are helping to shape the future of workforce learning, including AI-powered learning platforms.
Next, WST hosted a panel about the future of work and learning in the age of AI with moderator Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and adjunct professor at Harvard GSE. As in previous stops, the Boston week included an alumni event and media-hosted dinner, this time with Axios on the topic of AI governance.
Unique to Boston, the WST team participated in the Boston Globe’s Tech Innovation Summit, where Bingham joined as a speaker on innovation, AI and workforce issues across Massachusetts. In addition, Boston Globe Magazine’s June 15 issue included an article about WGU with the headline “Technology workers need agility in the age of AI disruption,” using the tag line “At WGU, the most important question is not what AI will do in the workplace. It’s what WGU students will do with AI.”
The roadshow aimed to support the mission of WGU to address barriers to education, to promote access to students from all backgrounds, and to be innovators in the preparation of IT graduates to succeed in the workplace. As one of the largest conferrers of IT and cybersecurity degrees in the country, WST offers eight bachelor’s degrees, five master’s degrees and eight certificates. The school is distinctive for including, at no extra cost to students, relevant industry certifications (such as Cisco, CompTIA, ISACA, ISC2 and AWS) in its IT degree programs.
The road shows illuminated the people and ideas that make WGU’s mission to empower students so innovative—and relevant locally. Collaborating with local communities, each activity assembled an amazing group of people dedicated to advancing this important mission.
