mr. mike forster, dr. sarah oh, research fellow technology institute here in washington, d.c. mr. morgan reed, president of act, the app association here in washington. and mr. roger koch who mr. nelson already referred to, ceo of shield group technologies in west palm beach. we're delighted to have each and every one of you, and we'll begin to my left with your opening statement of no more than five minutes. mr. forster. >> thank you, chairman whittaker, ranking member schatz and the subcommittee on behalf of the mississippi coding communities. i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on how we might be helping bridging this enormous gap that exists between hi-tech employer needs for entry level programmers and developers and the available resources they have from our community colleges and four-year colleges. before i delve into that, and i will be brief with my comments, i want to say a little bit about innovate mississippi. our mission is to accelerate startups in mississippi by connecting them to mentors, to investment capital, to service providers. we've help

mr. forster. >> thank you. chairman wicker, ranking many schatz and members of the bcommittee on behalf innovate missy and the mississippi coding academies, i want to thank you for this opportunity to testify today on how we just might be helping bridge this enormous gap which exists between high-tech employer needs and for entry level programmers and developers and the available resources that they have from our community colleges and four-year colleges. before i delve into that, and i'll be brief in my comments i first want to say something about innovate mississippi. our mission is to connection our startups to mentors, investment capitals, to service providers. we've helped transform over 1,200 ideas into real companiescompanies, and those companies have raised over $170 million in capital and have produced about 6,000 jobs. all of that is very important, and we're proud of the fact that we do that with a very small staff of six professionals. we've got a budget of $1 million a year and half of it comes fro