4/18/09: Your Weekly Address

With the process of going through the budget line by line in full swing, the President uses his Weekly Address to give some examples, big and small, of how the Administration is working to cut costs and eliminate waste. The President also announces two new key appointments, Jeffrey Zients as Chief Performance Officer and Aneesh Chopra as Chief Technology Officer, who will be invaluable in streamlining the way government functions through efficiency and innovation.

BILL GATES URGES BLACKS TO BECOME TECH PROS

Tremendous Opportunities Await; African Americans Are 'Particularly Underrepresented.'

Apparently prompted by a recent study showing that less than 10 percent of the graduates of computer science programs are Black, Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates last week urged African Americans to become computer technology professionals.

Gates, one of the world's richest men, was speaking last Friday at a conference sponsored by the National Society of Black Engineers at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

The study prompting Gates' comments was released by the National Science Foundation. It showed that fewer than 6,000 of the 52,500 computer science graduates in the United States in 2004 were Black.

Gates said the nation is facing a shortage of technology professionals.

"The United States is not turning out from any group as many of the great engineers as there will be jobs for." He added, "Blacks are particularly underrepresented in the tech industry."

The Black engineers group named Microsoft the top employer for Black engineers. Meanwhile, Gates said Microsoft would partner with NSBE to enable it to hire and promote more Black engineers.