Agreed, and we're actually going off of the Codecademy/Khan Academy course tracks for what we're teaching.
But I don't think the moguls are creating more jobs here. They're importing people from elsewhere -- I'd say literally 75% of better of the Vegas Tech crowd hasn't been in town for more than six months. And they've shown zero interest in improving local education, either within the school system or independently. Unless you count Ruby meetup groups as education, which I don't. ;-)
I recently saw a PBS documentary on the birth of Silicon Valley. At one time, it was place that had nothing except cheap land and lots of farms. Las Vegas is kind of like this.
The key is to attract smart people. The problem with Las Vegas (or Nevada) is that the amount of engineers per capita is very low (about half of that in California).
Also, business does have an impact on higher education. If you look at Stanford or Cal, they have a strong program in computer engineering. UCLA, USC both are strong in medical sciences. UCSD strong in biopharma. It could be a chicken and egg thing - at some point businesses will demand skilled technical people from the universities and will adapt their programs accordingly.
Meetups allow me to learn from my peers. I would call that an educational tool. I suppose it depends what kind of meetups you go to...I like the powerpoint kind.
> And they've shown zero interest in improving local education, either within the school system or independently.
Surely that'll change over time? If there's an influx of well-paid young people now, within 10 years you'll have a pulse of well-off freshly-minted parents working its way through the system, some of whom are going to be incensed enough to fix the problems they see. In theory that sort of improvement shouldn't have to be centrally directed.
But I don't think the moguls are creating more jobs here. They're importing people from elsewhere -- I'd say literally 75% of better of the Vegas Tech crowd hasn't been in town for more than six months. And they've shown zero interest in improving local education, either within the school system or independently. Unless you count Ruby meetup groups as education, which I don't. ;-)