Tech Citizenship
2009
Citizenship has a face
By James M. Connolly, Managing Editor
For years, education reform has been about fingerpointing: Industry groups curse “the system,” administrators blame teachers unions, teachers criticize politicians. We yack about test scores, then complain about teaching to the test. We harangue about marketable skills, and everyone seems to envy India. What are we forgetting in all this blather? The kids.
The kid next door isn’t a statistic to be viewed as an undirected soul because she hasn’t committed to a lifelong career in technology. She is someone who needs to be at the same time nurtured, taught, enabled, guided and allowed to evolve. Yes, systemic changes and new laws are part of this process. However, there also is a need to reach out to our young people as individuals. And that’s what, in many ways, the 24 companies profiled in this issue do. A key component in our annual TechCitizenship awards program is how tech companies give back to the community through education initiatives.
An interesting aspect of the list of charities that benefit from the works of the TechCitizenship honorees, is the number reaching out to their local communities—even into individual schools.
Given the events of the past 18 months, it is understandable that many companies have cut back on charitable work. We hope you will thank these 24 who have continued to do good. At the same time, it’s vital that those companies who did cut back don’t view charity as an expendable cost when they recover from the recession. Outreach that helps anyone is a mark of good corporate citizenship, but community-level work that puts a name and a face to the kids who make up our future work force—that’s truly rewarding.
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