DC’s new $1.2M program aims to close the tech talent gap

Unique Morris-Hughes recalled that when she was attending college, she made $100 stretch over a whole month. That shouldn’t be the norm, she said. 

“I often wonder, what if I had an opportunity to be paid and also learn at the same time?” said Morris-Hughes, DC’s labor secretary and head of its Department of Employment Services (DOES).

To provide such opportunities beyond the four-year degree model, the district teamed up with a local startup to upskill DC residents in different tech jobs through a $1.2 million investment. 

The Capital Workforce Innovation Consortium, developed via DOES’ partnership with the software job training firm BuildWithin, is pulling together different apprenticeship and training programs in the city in one centralized place. The program and its new platform, SkillsNation, aim to connect residents with tech jobs. 

There are also incentives for startups: Using money from the federal Department of Labor, DC is offering $10,000 each to five firms that hire city residents as full-time apprentices. The program additionally set aside $200,000 in total for startups looking to pre-train future full-time employees from the apprenticeship. Beyond that, it offers an incentive to cover six months of salaries for 30 recent college graduates hired through a new DC Fellowship Program.

“It’s reaching DC residents, supporting small businesses and startups,” Morris-Hughes told Technical.ly during DC Startup and Tech Week Monday. “Because there is a talent drain that exists.”

DC has one of the highest concentrations of tech employment in the country, per CompTIA’s latest tech workforce report. According to Technical.ly’s Tech Economy Dashboard, the region boasts nearly 21,000 job postings in tech as of September. That’s a major jump from 2023, which saw about 18,600 the same month. 

The $1.2 million allocated for these initiatives comes from local and federal funds, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The goal is to increase those funds over time and build out the programming and incentives in the future, per Morris-Hughes. 

SkillsNation, the new site produced through the consortium, houses information about existing programming. For example, there’s a youth apprenticeship for high school students and an out-of-school program for local residents ages 16 to 24 who are not enrolled in secondary or post-secondary education. 

Luis Sarno is a recent graduate of this program. The DC native held different jobs after graduating from high school. He was working at Starbucks when the pandemic hit and was at a loss for what to pursue career-wise. 

He eventually took part in a coding bootcamp. He had some of the necessary technical skills from that, but didn’t have the experience to get a job in the field. 

Sarno later attended a webinar with DOES about different tech training opportunities, and he came across BuildWithin, which houses an apprenticeship program in its own company. He completed a month-long intensive, then a three-month internship and was eventually offered an apprenticeship role at the startup as a software engineer. 

He graduated from the program in August and is now a full-time employee. The tech apprenticeship model helped him, and he hopes that the consortium allows others to follow the same route. 

“I’m a big advocate for apprenticeships now,” Sarno told Technical.ly. “If there’s one available for anybody out there, I will be the first one to let them know and just spread the word.”

BuildWithin, one of Technical.ly’s 2023 RealLIST Startups, was cofounded by CEO Ximena Gates and Michelle Rhee, a former DC Public Schools chancellor whose management of personnel and other issues generated controversy during her 2007-2010 tenure. According to her LinkedIn, Rhee, who launched the education organization StudentsFirst after leaving the school district, has not been with BuildWithin since Dec. 2023. 

Gates, the former cofounder of civic tech company Phone2Action and a previous assistant superintendent in the public school system, wanted to work with the city to bridge a disconnect she sees in her work every day. There are these huge corporations and startups in need of tech talent, but a gap in people who have the skills to fill those roles, she explained. 

“The consortium is really to accelerate impact,” Gates told Techncal.ly, “integrating all the efforts that exist. Because there are great efforts around. It’s not to create a new thing, it’s to actually be more like a platform to speed up acceleration.”

This public-private partnership is intentional for the city, too. 

The government is inherently “clunky,” Morris-Hughes said, and realized a need for collaboration across the public and private sectors. 

“We knew that if we were going to change the game, the government couldn’t do it alone,” she said. “Government can often be laserally focused on compliance and process, and we want to be a value-add to industry.”