BOSTON (State House News Service) – To some in tech, Massachusetts could, and should, build a blockchain industry to rival Silicon Valley by investing resources in the burgeoning industry.
Tech industry advocates testified at a Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development hearing Wednesday morning to show their support for legislation (H 4922) designed to lift education and training programs specializing in blockchain technology.
“It’s time to think about, ‘What is the art of the possible here with blockchain in the Commonwealth?’” John Rademacher of Tata Consultancy Services said. “It’s a technology that can bring workforce and economic development to the Commonwealth, we feel. Imagine in the next 10 years you look out and the Commonwealth has become what the biotech industry became here in Boston.”
The bill, introduced by Reps. Josh Cutler of Pembroke and Kate Lipper-Garabedian of Melrose, would set up a a Blockchain Labor Force Career Training Trust Fund to finance grants for employers, workforce development entities, vocational technical schools and higher education institutions to develop and expand blockchain training opportunities, and to sponsor scholarships and paid internship programs for individuals seeking careers in the industry.
Advocates testified Wednesday that, though Massachusetts is home to some of the top tech schools in the country — MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, Tufts and Boston University — students pursuing blockchain jobs are leaving the state after graduation.
Chris Gilrein, executive director of Northeast TechNet, said that according to a study commissioned by TechNet last year, the tech sector at large accounts for over 450,000 jobs in Massachusetts — about 12 percent of total jobs. Gilrein said in the next 10 years they are expecting the number of job openings in the industry to grow by at least 12 percent.
“The innovation economy, it moves quickly, and our traditional workforce development apparatus may not be nimble enough to react,” Gilrein said. “As such, a targeted workforce development strategy that identities a growth industry and works with the industry to tailor new and existing programs to meet that need, such as the one envisioned here in H 4922, is an appropriate and welcome response.”
