About 60 tech professionals and dozens of curious students came together Thursday in the RISE innovation center at UH Mānoa to talk about the future of workplace technologies and how those students might some day be filling jobs not even invented yet.
Representatives from these industries included software engineers, product managers and even some CEOs, from local firms but also global companies, such as Google, Netflix, Dreamworks, Amazon and Microsoft.
“Students don’t know what’s available [in tech] because they don’t see it in the job market,” said Trung Lam, co-founder of ThriveHI, a local non-profit organization focused on entrepreneurship. This Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship-hosted event, he said, provided students a chance to learn “what’s out there,” and it was open to all majors.
Janelle Joson, a computer science major, for example, attended and said she was unsure beforehand of what she would do with her degree. But from the talks, which included lectures and one-on-one meetings, she said she was able to gain new perspectives about the possibilities.
She added, “It’s made me focus my future plans towards preparing for these jobs” that are emerging, not just the ones that already exist.
