Over 150 Chicagoland leaders came together for the Green Collar Jobs and Building a High-Tech Green Economy conference at Oakton Community College on Friday, November 13. Attendees included business, labor, government, education, and community representatives.
US Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Chicago Alderman Manuel Flores both delivered keynote addresses at the event, organized by the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance council’s North Suburban Chapter. Discussion topics included green economic development, emerging green technologies, and green career paths and training options.
Education and manufacturing were the most dominant topics. The speakers and audience agreed that in order to compete in the global economy, the US must remain at the cutting edge of technological innovation, relying on its solid advanced manufacturing base.
However, the ability to motivate students to train for the math, science, engineering, and technology skills to lead our transition to a high-tech green economy is limited within our educational system.
“We have to take some action steps,” Alderman Flores said. “We have to support the kind of efforts to revitalize education and repurpose it in a way where there is some practical effect.”
The tone at the event was cautionary but hopeful. The speakers highlighted a number of programs in Chicago and around the country that are moving us in the right direction. An example mentioned by both Alderman Flores and US Rep. Schakowsky is Austin Polytechnical Academy, a manufacturing-focused public high school on Chicago’s west side.
“Our region can be a leader in discovering the technologies and developing the educated workforce that will put us right in the center of these new developments on a sustainable path,” US Rep. Schakowsky said. “We can build and employ a workforce that can mass-produce those technologies.”
The conference was hosted and organized in partnership with Oakton Community College, Illinois workNet Center, the Workforce Board of Northern Cook County, and the Delta Institute.
Join the discussion! We invite you to comment and share your impressions, ideas, and feedback from the event – as well as your thoughts on the green movement in general.
