The $15 Minimum Wage
Panel Discussion moderated by Lynn Thompson of The Seattle Times

On May 1, 2014, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced a deal between labor and business to get all workers to $15 an hour over the next seven years. Come hear a lively discussion on this sweeping change with a panel featuring:

• Howard Wright, co-chair Mayor’s IIAC and CEO of Seattle Hospitality Group,
• Tracey Thompson, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 117,
• Taylor Hoang, owner of Pho Cyclo and a leader of the minority small-business coalition, and
• Nicole Vallestero-Keenan, policy analyst for Puget Sound Sage.

Moderated by Lynn Thompson, who is the City Hall reporter for the Seattle Times. She has worked at the Times for 13 years and covered education, local government, youth violence and legal affairs. Lynn is a graduate of the University of Washington and Boston University.

by Dann Mead Smith

Our featured speaker, Hadi Partovi, founder and CEO of Code.org was introduced by his friend and our member, Nicole Nazzaro, who mentioned that he was recently featured in both The Seattle Times and The New York Times  (click HERE for the NYTimes article).

He started his presentation with a short video that featured will.i.am, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg explaining the importance of teaching computer science and learning how software works.  Their goal at Code.org, which is just one-year old and is one the fastest growing non-profits, is to bring computer science to every classroom in the country.  He mentioned how it suddenly turned from a hobby into a full-time job when 13,000 schools asked for their help in one week!

Some of the statistics he mentioned about the need for Code.org were:
• Less than 5% of US students learn code vs. every student in China
• There will be 1 million unfilled computer science jobs by 2020
• For every computer science graduate there are 27 open jobs for software engineers and the need for these jobs is increasing but students are not
• There are less students now than there were ten years ago
• Computer science is not being taught in schools: 90% of schools won’t teach computer science
• 31 states don’t count computer science as graduation requirements