BBW23 – Day 1 – Blockchain/Web3 Workforce Development in Massachusetts

[Music] so he's the host Grandmaster Energizer Bunny right behind uh this Boston blockchain week and co-founder and um wait executive chair of cubic Labs right is there anything you don't do oh it's well also wait there's one more quiny city counselor oh yes Y and and I take out the trash at this event as well well thank you for inviting us to quiny at um I live in the town next door in Milton I always like to say I may live in Milton but I eat and Shop in quiny so and uh it's great to see Hancock Hancock Street transformed um well pertinent to this discussion uh spending your dollar here in the city of quiny is important which is why we host events like Boston blockchain week so yeah I know it's great I was telling someone that earlier that um you know you got a little Somerville going on here right we do yeah I think so there's uh there are definitely some components of Somerville Cambridge I think we're trying to take the best of uh you know not only around Greater Boston but from places we've been around the world and bring it to quiny so that we can do things like uh stimulate economy and create jobs through so anyways I think you guys are well on your way so ABS okay so we're talking about Workforce Development and um the labor market with blockchain and web 3 we got a half an hour we'll try not to go over oh wait actually I think the other panel took a few minutes from us so um anyway so um as many as all of you know the economy is very weird all right uh and we have uh a lot of tech companies laying off people we even have biotech companies laying off people um so what's what's the hiring picture for um web 3 and blockchain um Ian why don't you start off seeing what you're what are you seeing true um so I can talk about it from the perspective of what we're doing at cubic Labs so um as I've mentioned multiple times and you'll continue to hear throughout the course of the program is that we started cubic Labs with the idea of generating Economic Development and creating jobs uh through the adoption of blockchain Technology um you know what we found obviously the environment's changed over the past three years uh we've been fortunate to put to put together public private Partnerships and to work with organizations like Massachusetts technology collaborative uh to deploy Capital into Founders into teams uh in order to I don't know support pilots and MVPs and see what can really come out of this blockchain and web 3 uh environment especially in the aftermath of of what we've seen uh in the prior couple of years so you know we're really at the Forefront we're at early stage we're we're giving out $25,000 grants to folks and saying uh hey we'll give you a Runway of 3 to 6 months um if you can prove out a concept we have private Capital to back stop that we'll evaluate uh your business plans uh with the idea that we'll support a seed stage partner with our co- Capital Partners uh in order to support that growth grow and then in turn uh job creation and I think you know a lot of the things that we've seen um sort of thankfully is that the froth has started to wash away with a lot of the speculative nature of the space and what we're really trying to focus on is identifying real world applications that are scalable and actually pertinent creating value whether you operationally or or True commercial value in businesses and are you still seeing companies interested in uh or I guess entrepreneurs interested in taking the grants and starting companies yeah absolutely so we we rolled this program out uh 9 months ago uh just after the last Boston blockchain week um we've supported nine companies so far but that's uh separate from the other blockchain and web 3 companies that we've been supporting over the past 2 and a half three years so um you know the numbers are still to be proven I think in the in the thesis that we put together the idea was that we would take a look at about uh 30 to 45 different concepts through the deployment of a 2 million Grant the idea of creating approximately 15 10 to 15 companies out of those Concepts that we see through trial and error and then on the back end we would see at least in the near- term somewhere around 60 jobs and that's a you know two-year program Jason what are you seeing from your Vantage Point you what we're seeing is a continued interest in tech jobs overall it can be kind of challenging to get to the granularity of blockchain Industry Statewide uh you know a lot of the data Gators you know a year or two ago it was fashionable to say you were you You' throw blockchain in on your you know the your job description that's kind of gone back burner now now every job description is an AI job and we know that they're not just as we knew they weren't before mean what we what we do know though from is that while there's been shifting in the tech sector uh you the one of the more credible places we look um for data has sort of Quantified last year net Tech tech jobs did have a small increase about 1 and a half% now these aren't huge numbers I mean that translates to about 5,000 people so I'm not you know painting a Rosy picture but it is not negative they can you know that same source is expecting about 2 and 3/4% growth this year so it it's gradual you know I think that we're seeing a realignment in the tech sector um and then one of in as we dig in with a little more granularity the the proxies that are probably closest to blockchain in these data sets looking at things like uh database and emerging Tech uh sort of those subsets they're looking at about a 3 to 4% growth rate for 23 so it's still it's still going positive if you could just jump in you know from a macro point of view and I'm you know a policy maker not an expert like like these guys uh but you know we see if you look at the data for Massachusetts there's about 100,000 folks looking for work according to most recent data and there's about 220,000 job openings so it's clear we you know we have a labor force partition participation rate is down and so you know we we hear about these some of these tech companies that are doing some limited uh downscaling but you know there's all these other folks looking for work and so it's clear from from my point of view as a policy maker we need to really focus our dollars on reskilling and upskilling our Workforce because you know we we have a limited Workforce and so whether it's you know doing that or tapping into underrepresented pools of workers people who may not have traditionally been in the blockchain space or in the tech space and so that's what we're trying to do as policy makers and that's why and I come to these events is I want to kind of learn from you all you know what we can be doing better to to try to make sure we have the workforce that we need for the future because we know that blockchain like AI like robotics like Quantum and other things that I don't even understand you know are emerging Technologies and we want to make sure that Massachusetts continues to be a leader and that we're poised and have the workforce to to you know to accommodate that need representative Cutler you have a bill right at the State House I B for for for I I was actually surprised it was like it was it was specifically for for blockchain Workforce Development talk about why you're getting why you're sponsoring a bill like this sure yeah thanks for it uh so I happen to so I'm the chairman of the labor and Workforce Development Committee in the legislature the house chair but I also work with representative Kate ligerian who's a a familiar face here and we're the co-chairs of the The house's blockchain technology caucus uh Ian has been a great supporter and Jason and mtec and uh folks in that nature and uh we started that last session you know as as a way to try to you know educate ourselves and our our colleagues about blockchain technology you know we know that Massachusetts already has you know an emerging and and successful sector but we also know that we have the sort of tools here to be a real player and a Powerhouse in this we have you know the academic institutions MIT we have The Talented Workforce and so we just need to make sure that we're sort of nurturing that industry like we we've done in the past with say like biotech which has become a you know successful Mega successful billion dollar industry because we made as policy makers we took concrete steps to kind of support that and we continue to do that and so we wanted to see us kind of do that with blockchain and so that led to the legislation thank you for giving me the the plug on the bill I always try to do that uh with that I filed along with representative Le garabedian to create a Career Training fund just to focus on blockchain technology it would uh do a lot of different things but it would basically direct our department of Career Services Commonwealth Corporation and uh Department of Labor to come up with some training programs uh for blockchain technology both like C you know adult certificate type of programs but also encouraging our Career Centers to to dig into that and even going to down into you know the votch schools and making sure that that's part of their curriculum it would also and I think it's important I don't want to dominate the discussion with these great panelists but you know measure some of the demographic data and how we're doing in terms of making this a diverse Workforce you know measuring uh gender racial uh you know category so we're ensuring that you know we're make the workforce is reflective of the population as a whole I'd like to say you know you can't change something that you don't measure and so that's sort of the first step so so Ian from your Vantage Point what are the hardest jobs to fill in the blockchain industry I think the well the top jobs I think that are looking to be filled are more technical in nature so you're hearing a lot of people who I mean this is inside baseball most of you people probably come from the space um you know you just heard of very technically focused panel uh talking about protocols uh those jobs are in demand we get people that come to us with Concepts and ideas uh who have potentially never managed a technical product development before right and so we need to help them to identify technical Partners in order for them to actually build out uh what they intend to as a business so i' would say technical in nature and and even just connected to what um some thoughts that had just come out for my colleagues over here is that um there's no unified or sort of uh direct dots being connected between education and the workforce right um most of these people either probably were uh technologists tinkerers had uh become developers through educational pathways on their own but there's not necessarily a comprehensive uh blockchain curriculum both Technical and non-technical to support uh the talent pipeline right that's that could be necessary for the jobs that we're seeking to create so do you need I mean on one level if you if you're like a soft if you're a software engineer won't you be Des you know highly desirable in the blockchain uh Market but do you need one more layer do you need a specialty track to to get into blockchain yeah talk about a little B it's all about it's all about language right so if you know certain languages that are applicable for particular blockchains then yes you're going to be more desirable than others depending on the project and the complexity of uh all these projects that people are focused on um but I think that you know what we saw in the prior iteration of the market generally is that people could go and TR self-train and uh potentially get a certificate that would allow ow them to come out with a sixf figure salary uh you know in the bull market now on the other side uh you know a lot of the speculation has gone away the sort of Gold Rush that we we saw everyone flood to Miami now is the time for us to take advantage of our natural competitive advantages with education and capital here in the Northeast where we might be a little bit slower but in the long run uh we will certainly Prevail in order to take you know full advantage of supporting this industry in the in the way that we seek it to grow so are the colleges and universities here equipped to train the blockchain workforce or they need Josh Cutler's Bill both both yeah say both yeah probably both yeah I mean I don't know Jason or if you want to take that off I think I think there's different points of integration across the systems we have we we have some places that are going to be very strong kind of in the coding uh components being able to do that uh you know one of the other things that we're starting to see is interest in some in uh some colleges universities and sort of the applied blockchain uh we have an investment working with a team at WPI right now um really trying to figure out how do you expand the use of blockchain with an eye towards some social equity and touch businesses that aren't blockchain native so taking working with businesses that have uh a lot have have interesting data that lends itself to this kind of Technology where really the blockchain is the enabling traceable technology so uh they've done some work uh last year uh TR trying to cross those bridges and one of the things that uh we've learned that is kind of exciting to me and challenging too is that their approach is not just the tech Focus they brought kind of the whole wraparound realizing that for as much as we need people who can code and build the blockchain we need the tech translators who can take this to non native people and understand that blockchain is the enabling tool it doesn't have to be the headline it can be the quiet thing underneath and so they're wrestling with all of that uh in some pretty exciting ways so I think you know there's interest in there's interest and Pockets across um a lot of our universities that you know we can unleash and I think one of the other things that we see across a lot of our other disciplines is there's a really strong opportunity I'm looking out to everybody here who's in the space now whether you're a student or your business um one of the things that so many of our College universities are looking for our Capstone projects as they move toward Capstone projects for students to get real world experience if they don't know you they're never going to connect you with a Capstone project so you know think about building those relationships that's one of those sort of on the ground pieces where we can really move Workforce forwards so can I jump in on that point uh we we just came uh my my crew and I just came from a a a visit to the national uh excuse me North Atlantic Carpenters Association in Dorchester to tour and learn more about their apprenticeship program and I bring that up because I think even though it's a you know much different technology than than blockchain um they have an amazing apprenticeship program it's really well done uh and and well populated and I think you know we need to think about colleges and universities but also alternatives to that and and I think apprenticeships really offer that and we're seeing you know increasingly you know obviously people think of apprenticeships and the Building Trades that's sort of the natural inclination but increasingly we're seeing tech companies that are adopting the the apprenticeship model we toured one in the seport earlier this this session and I think you know a lot of companies are starting to to do that and see the value in that especially in such a tight labor market as we have today and so you know I want to really want we want to you know from a legislative point point of view really encourage that uh and I have another bill on apprenti ships which I I won't believe her the point on but I think you know uh and the state has a registered apprenticeship program to today in which if you have an apprenti program you can register it with the state and you know and help to to um publicize it get the word out and uh you know I think that's a wonderful model to follow so we're not always thinking about colleges and universities which obviously are important but you know looking at the apprenticeship model too and I think that could apply to blockchain uh just as well um Jason I was wonder if you can talk a little bit uh uh you know the the where you work the tech tech collaborative um it's a quasi state agency and uh you know there's a new uh Governor uh Mor Healey uh and there's also she has her economic secretary Ivon how turns out you've known Ivon a very long time and uh so you and uh because one of the questions I wanted to ask Jason was well where is the healing Administration on this where is economic secretary um Ivon how on blockchain yeah I I think we're we're we're we're lucky to have an Administration that is enthusiastic about tech in general and I think that that that's been uh really clear from the outset for us and um yes I I've known secretary how for years we were classmates together in college so we both bring that sort of broad liberal arts perspective to all of Economic Development um she came from a tech background she came from pillpack yeah yeah pillpack was sort of yet you know this amazing Tech expansion quickly and uh you know I think so she's very comfortable in that space yeah um one of the other great things that we've seen early on is is this Administration recognized we have amazing capabilities in the Commonwealth and Technology one of the places we've been lagging uh is sort of grabbing our share of federal funds and um you know early on the administration was really handson joining with us making a full court press on pursuing some of the chips and science funds uh you know initially and uh semiconductors and I can actually point out earlier today Department of Defense announced their first eight award EAS and Mast um received $19.7 million in that for the Commonwealth for semiconductors breaking news by the way breaking news not blockchain not blockchain but but but I I offer that as sort of a symbol of this Administration being Allin and in that work there are like 90 some Partners you know the governor and the secretary were handson with our team through that uh we're pivoting now to some new work in um Eda Tech hubs and there's been some strong interest there in sectors so I think we're well situated in in in over over this o o o over this term with um an Administration that gets it I'm going to take a I want to just take a different perspective you know of course we appreciate the work that we're doing with Mast and and are U grateful for that um I think Massachusetts is missing uh an opport opportunity I think we suffer from a bad PR problem uh especially around Innovation and Entrepreneurship where there are places that uh people will gladly uh pick up and move from here to go to because they think it's a more favorable environment for entrepreneurship and Innovation or there might be more Capital uh or it's you know seasonal you can't do anything about um and you have to deal with that but I think that from a public relations perspective we could do a much better job as a state to outwardly communicate that this is a place to to start a business uh we just went through uh and you would understand this the ballot initiative on the millionaires tax uh that's a huge hindrance to to some folks for deploying Capital supplying uh supplying Capital to entrepreneurs and even a deterrence for some people to start their businesses because of the future potential uh outcomes for on a tax basis um so I think that there are there are plenty more things that we could do designing incentive packages to attract entrepreneurs and then to do uh on top of that if we're talking about blockchain specifically uh you know the the grant that we received was the first that Massachusetts had made in a prior Administration you know there's plenty more opportunities to form and to grow these public private Partnerships in the way that you're using public Capital UPF front and you're and you're basically matching up many multiples of private Capital to support that growth just as we did with life sciences a decade plus ago right and that takes a collaboration uh and and much more of a capital commitment I mean let's stay on this topic because I I've read several statistics that say that um in you know of course we have lots of colleges and universities here we probably um educate uh an outside uh you know disproportionate number of people with you know software engineering degrees and Technical talent but they don't stay here Beyond a year or two they they come to school here and they leave so how do we keep more of them here one is passing tax relief right that's your job going to jump in with that yeah I you're going to talk about tax relief right and so let's talk about that tax say we're talking about the healing Administration you know I will Echo what Jason said you know they've been fantastic to work with and one of the things the governor has sort of LED with is competitiveness and making Massachusetts you know more competitive and that's been you know she's been talking about that quite a bit the he Jal Administration and we have a tax relief package that is has been passed by both branches not to get into the legislative weeds and still in a conference committee but you know so it's going to get done um you and that includes you know a big change to the estate tax which is something you know I do hear occasionally from folks who are thinking about where where do they do business you know that does have an impact especially you know path through entities can be impacted by the estate tax so you know we're looking at that and really raising the threshold so that doesn't hit the middle class folks uh the way it way it might be today so and it includes some other things you know renters deductions including other things trying to make us more cost competitive because I think there's a recognition about what Ian is saying certain things we can't fix the weather uh but we can fix other things and you know I think Massachusetts is a wonderful state we have a you know our skilled Workforce is really our you know our natural resource we I like to say we don't have vast oil reserves or natural you know minerals like some other states we have our our skilled Workforce and that's what attracts people to here and so you know investing in our Workforce but also making sure we remain competitive as I think is the sort of the twin pillars of of being about fix but what about fixing or or doing things about the culture that would keep young kids here I mean it's so expensive to live here the tea never works um you know uh so I mean what about that that aspect of life you know here I mean it I'll just speak to the the cultural aspect I think generally I mean that's what we learned over the past few years in this space is that people were running off to other places we trained them all we were top you know three producer of the talent and then we're top seven consumer of that talent and I'm sure that those numbers have changed over the past couple of years um but I mean this is this is an effort to try to make the space a little bit cooler in the Northeast right it's a second your effort on our part but it's something it's taking a seed that exists elsewhere planting it and letting it grow and Thrive because that's what's needed uh for people in this space to feel welcomed to feel like it's a community um and then the tea that that's your level um you know I just got a him I mean no it's ridiculous we're we're at quiny here we're in such a great position to Boston we get four stops in the red line access to all major highways and I just get a notification that for the next two weekends it's going to be shut down and so you know and then on top of it there's a requirement now for Transit oriented development by the thousands to be built in transit oriented districts okay by T by T MBTA stations and uh I don't know why you're going to build thousands of Apartments next to areas uh that doesn't have an operable public transit system so that's a huge problem and that requires capital investment but at least if again it's about Communications it's about public relations this is about communicating that we're going to make these necessary improvements uh to make our state more palatable for for any sort of tech entrepreneur not just blockchain well let me uh where it begin no no I would just say I mean I agree with what Ian says and the m is is a frustration and you know you know the Millionaire's tax is going to fix the tea I will defend the millionaire tax I mean that funded Universal school lunches for every kid in Massachusetts a p I'm W to pay it I am not someone who's paying extra because of the millionaire but what I would say is you know just we changing laws is you know I always say is like sort of the easy part but changing attitudes can be more difficult and I agree with the and that you know I'm the least cool guy up here but I think you know that factor that you're trying to do here is so important I'll say you know one of the reasons we started the the blockchain caucus and the legislature is just trying to change the attitudes I think because you know people have this perception because we have you know one of our some of our elected officials at the federal level you know are perceived as not being friendly to to blockchain and other Technologies and so we wanted to make sure that didn't so that wasn't something that the Massachusetts legislature you know sort of became part of and and you know so we've tried to educate people and I think you know in small ways we we've achieved that but you know obviously there's a lot of a lot of work to be done um but you know I think it's a I I think it's a wonderful place to live I'm a Southshore guy so I you know I love quiny to my district is is Marshfield pemro hen uh Duxbury area so I I I'm in this area a lot and I think it's a great place to live and work and raise a family but I recognize that you know for folks who are starting out it's impossible to find housing it's really challenging and um we need to do a better job and you know I think this a broad recognition from the healing Administration from from everybody from Governor Baker before before that we need to do that and I think we're trying to take steps like you know the transit oriented development to to make that um to do to do a better job and bring in more housing so um a lot of work to be done I'll try to come up with a bill for each of those things and uh we we'll be we'll be on it I'll work with the in I'm I'm I'm almost disappointed you you made me uh remember that our federal legislators in Massachusetts are actually uh antithetical to this entire space which does not do us any favors well so let me just defend Senator Mary uh because I think he's been I won't bring him up particular Senator that talks about building an anti- crypto Army and I do not think that that's advantageous to Massachusetts towards an industry um and I I don't know how it actually helps her get votes uh I don't realize how many people are actually anti this space that it's going to get her votes but um you know that doesn't help emerging Tech it doesn't help uh Economic Development or jobs and that can be transposed to other types of emergy ticket you know if we're not favorable to blockchain why would we be favorable to AI or machine learning you know so well that's why we you know I think Mast te having a no I'm not trying to bring you having a quas I like Mast te is important doing events like this and all of you is sort of ambassadors and diplomats for the industry you know and all the great things Ian's doing I mean and it's not all you I and you have a great group of folks here but I'm really impressed and you know I think we need to do more of this and it's great that you're we love the state level yeah and we love the local level too cuz you can be City counselors can be difficult to deal with though so we have about 5 minutes left and so I will open it up for questions I'll ask one more more question and then um will there be a mic passed around okay can I ask one question one question now so um real quickly so if if um if people who are being trained here or who started here are moving away who's which cities or markets POS the biggest um competition to uh I guess Boston blockchain workers retaining and uh keeping that kind of talent and what are they doing right you know why why are people going to those Market Market anybody want to take that on the first I mean the first one i' say Miami that's just been over I mean they took circumstantial I mean it was a coid and capital people moved down to Florida there's no income tax also true I mean but also during the uh you know the more favorable crypto Market people move to Puerto Rico to you know for more favorable tax environment but um you know Miami certainly Austin more favorable uh people moved to California we had in a report that people were moving to Illinois which was more favorable which I don't know why um and then um New York which is sort of Hit or Miss depending on you know there's banking side of it there's they've got sort of things against uh mining operations but people still move to New York City because there's Capital there and it's more favorable environment so we'll take this question here go ahead is there a mic or it comes he's got a Bitcoin shirt on hi thanks for being here sharing such valuable information and speak a little louder speak I said thanks for being here um for sharing valuable information for doing the work that you all are doing I appreciate it uh my question is if the state of Massachusetts wants to promote the importance and usefulness of the blockchain do you all see value in the state itself using blockchain check in a forward- facing manner such as tokenizing property records or blockchain voting Etc good question I'll grab that yeah thank you and so it's funny I'm sorry what was your name Ben Ben Ben so in our blockchain caucus we've been talking about a lot because you know one of our goals is to come up with sort of a demonstration project uh because you know we have a lot of colleagues that still you know don't fully underg grasp what it is and so we've looked at that we haven't come up with the solution yet and I'm open to you know grab me afterwards if you have that um but I do think um you know some you saw I know the city of Boston has has some applications that they've used I seen blockchain used for a Convention as a you know voting mechanism um so you know I think there's some some cool applications out there and you know the private sector is way ahead of us in terms of you know finding those and so you know that's one of the things I think we're trying to do from you know as a public sector trying to learn from what you all are doing so I would love to come up with something like that um it you know it's it's something that has to go through the legislative process and it's not something I can just snap my fingers and do but I think we would really love to to see that happen good questions there's actually just to comment so tomorrow there are uh two very pertinent panels to your question that uh you know discuss real world applications like that so one will be focused on uh municipal bonds on chain and another will be focused on uh real estate uh tokenization I I apologize I'm go finish your thing I one more not not at all but uh both of those are touching at least in these cases local and uh county level government and so in like from our perspective we view it as important as to come up through the Grassroots level to gain that option because sometimes there's education at the Statewide level bureaucracy red tape that make it a little more difficult but if you can prove it locally and sell that to other cities and towns there's a more you know a better appetite I think to spread it around to the state Ben I I just remember S interrup I just remember so one of my colleagues has a bill actually to uh use blockchain for uh property records oh wow that's an active bill that's in being considered the state house today so and it's actually charged us with figuring out the demonstration project for that so so we're working together is there another question from the audience we got like a minute left any anything else no wait no just write something is that it we wait no are you just standing or you he's waving so he can get on stage any other questions any other okay I I should we should we end it or or okay all right great that was it thank you representative Cutler Jason uh and uh thanks for having [Music] us