nothin Code Red: New Haven Needs Coders | New Haven Independent

Code Red: New Haven Needs Coders

Drue Hontz just hit the patent big time with his New Haven start-up — and is promising to stay in town to hire people here, even though so far he has relied on computer software programmers from Cambodia and Barcelona.

Hontz joined Mayor John DeStefano Thursday calling on local institutions to support the emerging tech economy by teaching more local kids to code. So that he and his fellow new-economy entrepreneurs can create more jobs for New Haveners.

And so that his company can avoid the path taken by some other New Haven-hatched companies that make the big time — and feel the need to leave town. That just happened with a start-up called Panorama.

Hontz, CEO and founder of Track180, made the remarks in a press conference at City Hall marking a milestone for his company. After three years, the company has landed a U.S. patent on a new way of helping people navigate large sets of data, he announced.

The tool aims to take the large amount of information out there and help people navigate it,” Hontz explained.

The company illustrated its tool in an app it recently released for iPad users to help them make connections between different topics in the news. The easiest way to understand it is to see it in use: Click on the play arrow above to watch a demonstration.

Melissa Bailey Photo

Hontz and his iPad.

The patent will help Track180 sell the tool to companies in other spheres beyond news, said Hontz. That means it can start expanding beyond its two full-time and three part-time employees, he said.

DeStefano applauded Track180 for its milestone, and used the moment to make a point: New Haven needs more coders.

He pointed to executives in the room from three New Haven tech startups: Track180; Grey Wall, which runs an information portal that helps emergency responders communicate during storms; and ShugaTrak, which just launched a diabetes-themed app last week.

You’re seeing companies largely driven by technology” sprouting up in New Haven, finding smart ways of delivering information to people, DeStefano said. He said these companies are New Haven’s future: Communities that are going to grow are going to be knowledge-based,” not manufacturing-based.

New Haven is facing a disconnect,” however, DeStefano said, between the organic, entrepreneurial-based energy” and the workforce. Simply put, he said, there aren’t enough programmers around.

We need to start thinking about preparing people to code,” DeStefano said.

Hontz agreed: His company is based at 900 Chapel St. and plans to stay there. But he has outsourced his employees from around the world. He said his company hired programmers in Barcelona, Spain and Cambodia to develop the Track180 app.

Hontz said he didn’t want to do that. But New Haven doesn’t have the same pools of programmers ready for work. Overseas, he said, 16- and 17-year-olds are ripping it up,” creating advanced designs, while their U.S. counterparts may be toying with their first basic iPad app.

As Track180 expands, it will need to hire more programmers. Hontz said he’s in negotiations with two separate software companies to provide more programmers. One of the companies is open to bringing workers here to live, he said.

Hontz and DeStefano.

DeStefano called on local universities, such as the University of New Haven and Quinnipiac University, to offer more robust programs in computer programming so that their graduates can start working for companies like Track180.

DeStefano said city public schools like the Engineering & Science University Magnet School should be more focused on computer coding,” starting with kids in middle school.

Three hundred years ago, New Haven’s economy was driven by the Quinnipiac River and the port, DeStefano later elaborated. Our lifeblood now is talent.” Talent like computer-coding.”

If New Haven develops a workforce of programmers, DeStefano added, it might keep companies like Panorama from fleeing to Cambridge. The Yale graduates who started the company just split town upon receiving $4 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Having more coders would make this a fertile place for these kind of startups,” DeStefano said.

If the workforce isn’t there, he said, at a certain point, you’re forcing them out of the city.”

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