When the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce launched its WorkIT Nashville initiative nearly three years ago, the goals were twofold: provide a place for job seekers and employers to find each other, and tell the story of Nashville's technology community.
At their core, those objectives aren't changing, but some recently announced realignments will change who does what. The slightly altered approach is reflective of the dual approaches Nashville's business community is taking to match tech talent supply with tech demand as we try to grow the businesses that will sustain the city's economy of the future.
"The chamber will continue to market the tech community," said Alex Hughes, vice president of talent attraction and retention at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. But now, thanks in part to grant money the Nashville Technology Council has received in recent years, the work of connecting job seekers and companies that are hiring will primarily be handled by the Technology Council.
"We need to start that conversation" about Nashville's tech vibrancy, Hughes said, and the chamber will continue to tell the story of what's happening in Nashville to outsiders. But the insiders — especially those just starting to consider tech careers — are the responsibility of the Tech Council and its new website, We Build Tech.
"We have great aspirations for the platform," Tech Council CEO Bryan Huddleston said. "First and foremost it's a community platform and one that we've not seen anywhere across the U.S."
The site, which has some functions and a Twitter account up right now, should roll out more fully by year-end, Huddleston said. It will include five primary components: a map alerting job seekers and potential interns to opportunities in town, job cards that share the key information for the types of jobs that need to be filled in tech, short videos in which current tech workers promote the types of jobs they do, and a learning library section to help potential or current workers find educational resources.
As mentioned, the Tech Council has landed grants at both the federal and state level in recent months, most designed to support workforce development for college (and some high school) students. Huddleston said the council sees tarting early and building that pipeline as the best "long-term strategy" to filling Nashville's technology needs.
"Our focus is on Middle Tennessee," Huddleston said when asked about the target audience for We Build Tech. "We feel like taking a long-term view of growing tech talent is going to be the right way of doing it.”