Tech Outlook: Mia Petersen, New Mexico Tech Council

Apr. 8—Mia Petersen, the executive director and CEO for the New Mexico Tech Council, is the guest on episode seven of the Tech Outlook podcast, which will be released Monday afternoon.

The New Mexico Tech Council was founded by Randy Burge in 2000. Petersen discussed the impact the nonprofit has had on the community, its collaboration with Central New Mexico Community College and its recognition of New Mexico women in technology.

Welcome to the show. Can you introduce yourself to our audience?

"I'm Mia Peterson. I am the CEO and executive director for the New Mexico Tech Council. Thank you so much for having me, excited to be here and talk a little bit about what we do.

What's different about the New Mexico Tech Council is we provide association services to the entire tech industry in New Mexico. And that includes industry sectors like cybersecurity, AI (artificial intelligence), software programming. So we're really looking to be inclusive to anybody who's a tech practitioner, and support the tech industry."

In the beginning, what was the mission? What did you set out to achieve with the council?

"One of the biggest challenges is a lot of tech companies face is funding. And so we, over the years, have supported startups to varying degrees and helping to connect them with resources. Another big challenge for a lot of tech businesses is workforce. I mean, that's not exclusive to tech. That's across all industries and professions, especially in this day and age. I think that's where the New Mexico Tech Council has become a lot more relevant. But certainly in the inception was a part of the mission as well. And workforce development and helping employers connect with employees, but also looking at how do we create the tech workforce of tomorrow? What are some of those initiatives that we can do on large institutional levels or with state and local government to really ensure that New Mexico's got that workforce that's going to meet the needs of tomorrow? And then finally, I would say, really just providing a network.

I saw that there was some collaborations with some state government entities. Talk to me about that.

"One of our biggest contributors, in terms of volunteer and financial support, is the city of Albuquerque, the Department of Technology and Innovation, the Department of Economic Development. ... On the state level, the Department of Information Technology is also one of our biggest supporters. ... In terms of our other really big partners, we're really fortunate to have a great partnership with (Central New Mexico Community College) and CNM Ingenuity, financially and volunteer wise. They're just really stepping up to the table. And likewise, we're incredibly impressed with the work that they're doing for non-traditional education here in the state."

Tell me a little bit about your collaboration with CNM. Can you expand on that?

"So one way that members get involved with us is through our signature events and we have two. We have the New Mexico Women in Tech Awards, that we've been doing for 16 years. We just had our big award ceremony a couple of weeks ago. And then, the New Mexico Tech Summit, which is formally known as experienceIT, which is the biggest tech conference in the state of New Mexico. And CNM has been a big financial supporter for those two events, really believing in the mission and the vision. They have also helped us with content offering, some ideas behind the scenes on strategy, but also putting forth speakers and content ideas, really helping us to bring that message. How do we get the cutting edge workforce of tomorrow that we need, and how do we ensure that every young New Mexican, especially those that are minorities or from indigenous populations, and young women, see themselves in tech? And so we've just really enjoyed our collaboration there in terms of planning the event, executing the event, and then also realizing and having their staff come out in support or having students attend the event. So they're just tremendously supportive. I can't emphasize enough."

As a woman in tech, can you tell me the influence women have had in the tech industry here in New Mexico?

"It's just incredible to see the concentration of the work that women are doing and the programs that they've set up. And I do want to highlight Mary Monson, she was an awardee this year. She works for Sandia Labs and she created the blueprint for how the national labs all across the country are looking to take their patent technology and really high tech, and transfer that to the local private industry markets. It's so incredible, because lay people, we don't really get to see what happens in the labs, right? We know a lot of it's around a fence, and we get like these little sneak peeks, but she's really enabled this process by which these discoveries and these breakthroughs are made public. And not only that, it's supporting a lot of startups, and from an economic perspective, that's huge. I think we're seeing the power of tech transfer in the space industry right now. Where NASA is like, 'Look, we can't solve these problems as quickly as a lot of the startups can, so let's shop it out.' And the idea there is sharing the wealth and also knowing there's a lot of smart people out there who are not going to work for labs, so let's let's figure this out together and make our society better at the end of it ...

Also kind of looking at our our lineup, another honoree I want to shout out is Trace Kliphuis. Trace has such a amazing career. She's an artist, she makes perfume. But in addition to that, she's an attorney. She worked at the environmental department of New Mexico for many years trying to really ensure that our beautiful landscape is maintained for future generations. And now she's the CEO of an AI-based firm and what they really do is it's AI for the purpose of environmental law and conservation. And so I love her interdisciplinary approach to how she's solving problems."