Conference Presentation, Fireside Chat, Interview
A Conversation with New York Governor Kathy Hochul | Global Conference 2024
- New York State aims to secure its status as the destination for the "most highly educated, most diverse workforce" by completing a supercomputer initiative for the Empire AI Consortium, with one specific campus confirmed in Buffalo, to attract federal grants and democratize AI access for broader demographics.
- A 20-year partnership with Micron involves the state delivering a highly skilled workforce through an engineering school consortium, supported by onsite childcare construction at the facility and local YWCA investments to address childcare shortages.
- The state plans to mitigate supply chain dependence on foreign-made chips and avoid pandemic-style shortages by establishing industry centers across the I-90 corridor in upstate New York to diversify regional economic success.
- A pilot program targeting the nine-county Syracuse region intends to intensify coding and STEM career education in K-12 classes for high-poverty areas, while the broader state strategy seeks to build mental health professionals into every school to identify issues early.
- New York will become the first state to mandate 20 hours of paid prenatal care leave for pregnant employees, placing the funding responsibility on employers to foster workplace innovation and profitability.
- The state intends to capitalize on new revolutions in clean energy, offshore wind, semiconductors, and AI, with the goal of uplifting the lower end of the economic spectrum to prevent the widening resentment between "haves and have-nots."
- Concerns regarding the long-term health of the workforce include potential negative impacts from current campus climates on collaborative skills, the loss of organic "creative collisions" due to remote work, and the psychological effects of social media and the pandemic on recent high school and college graduates over the next 5, 10, 20, and 30 years.