Capital CoLAB

The Capital Region is one of the nation’s leading tech employment hubs. Employers across all industries—from government and healthcare to the arts and energy—hire workers from an array of educational backgrounds to succeed in today’s increasingly digital economy.

However, regional employers risk 60,000 digital tech jobs going unfilled annually through 2025 unless they expand how they source talent. To keep pace with the region’s demand for digital skillsets and do so in a way that enables inclusive economic growth, employers must clearly signal their talent needs and proactively invest in their workforce pipeline.

60,000 unfilled digital tech jobs annually

over the next 4 Years

CoLAB’s Vision, Mission, and Key Outcomes

Vision: The Capital Region will have the most diverse digital tech workforce in the country.

Mission: Build the capital region’s diverse digital tech ecosystem by partnering with employers and educators to build industry-aligned digital tech pathways that ensure inclusive growth.

Key Outcomes: By 2025, CoLAB will:

Have engaged over 45,000 students and adult learners in digital tech pathways
Ensure at least 50 percent of the people we engage are from underrepresented populations
Double the number of partner organizations working to scale CoLAB initiatives

How We’re Doing It

Preparing the region’s digital tech and tech adjacent workforce starts with employers.

Through the CoLAB, employers take a proactive role in communicating their needs to regional stakeholders. The strength of the Employer Signaling System (ESS) emerges in its ability to communicate directly with educators to influence the pathways of digital tech students.

Regardless of where students matriculate, their engagement with CoLAB skills-aligned content means they are learning what employers have said they need. Through this process, we are as well as to structurally shift regional thinking aboutfundamentally shifting foundational education for the next generation of workers.