The earth is rumbling in Las Vegas, and not just on those rare occasions we experience an earthquake.
Our budding technology sector is doing ground-shaking stuff. Here’s a tiny sampling:
• Banjo, a web startup, mines posts on other social media sites to detect in real time events happening worldwide, from minor car crashes to riots and plane crashes. The site’s creators say they know about news before anyone else on the planet, except those witnessing it first-hand.
• MedWand, developed by Dr. Samir Qamar of Las Vegas, measures heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen and other vital signs, and features a camera that can capture video from the ears, throat and eyes. The data are transmitted through a secure online connection to a physician, who can assess a patient’s health and determine whether he or she needs to make an office or hospital visit.
• Gohunt.com provides Western big-game hunters all the information they need to schedule and carry out a successful excursion.
That’s just a tiny sampling. Tech is exploding in Las Vegas, for reasons that include geography (we’re kind of an affordable suburb to Silicon Valley) and infrastructure (we’re at the crossroads of a vast network of fiberoptics).
Based on the brilliance of the people behind these innovations, the sky’s the limit for Las Vegas’ potential as a tech development hotspot.
But we’re limiting them — and by extension, our state’s economic growth — because of our education system.
As pointed out in a recent report by Brookings Mountain West, Nevada is in need of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workers. We’re not producing enough from our schools to meet the needs of our innovators. And for all but the most optimistic Nevadans, the state’s track record on education funding offers little hope we can make the investment needed.
We are entering the 2015 legislative session with a $162 million budget shortfall, and in November a GOP surge brought to power many legislators who champion keeping government spending in check. So the prospects of making strides in STEM education seem even dimmer.
The Republican lawmakers who stormed to power need to remember their promises to improve the state’s economy and should keep the Brookings report in the forefront of their minds as they head to Carson City.
Spending more now on education may hurt, especially given the budget situation, but if we have any hope of turning our budding tech industry from a ripple to a boom, it’s an investment that needs to happen.