Acquia, a venture capital backed company that provides enterprise level service and support of the open source social publishing software, Drupal, has just launched Acquia U, to employ and train recent college grads and career changers to become designers, developers, marketeers, and customer support representatives of Drupal. And Acquia is partnering with as many universities as possible to deliver and promote this workforce development program. Acquia’s got it right. The private sector and education working together to create and execute workforce development programs that address the current skills that are required for open positions today. There are plenty of jobs available for skill sets that we aren’t yet teaching in our universities. Let’s not complain about it, let’s fix it. The private sector and education can do this together.

Is this self serving on Acquia’s part? Of course! What’s wrong with that? In fact it’s good. Business is incented, education is incented, the workforce is incented, and the economy is incented. Acquia’s got it right.

www.acquia.com

www.umb.edu/entrepreneurship_center