Believe It: Hartford No. 4 U.S. Tech City

According to recent data from the Brookings Institution, Hartford is the fourth best city in the country for tech jobs.

That may come as a surprise to us Nutmeggers, but apparently it did not for the scholars who put together Brookings’ detailed report on the digital economy. “Following San Jose at the top of the digitalization rankings,” says the report, “comes a ‘who’s who’ of higher-tech advanced industry centers ranging from Boston; Austin, Texas; Hartford, Conn.; Salt Lake City; Raleigh, N.C.; Seattle; San Francisco; and Madison, Wis.”

Nothing to see here. Just another study about the tech industry including Hartford in a class with Seattle and San Francisco as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And looking at the data from the study, maybe Hartford should just get comfortable with the company it’s keeping.

The study looked at jobs that require technology skills and knowledge. What those jobs look like is very different than what it used to be. While tech jobs were once limited to information technology staff and tech companies, traditional industries are becoming tech enabled. As the study puts it: “Digitalization is proceeding rapidly and widely but not evenly across occupations and industries.”

Connecticut may not be brimming with unicorn startups (though we have those, too), but as shown by the record number of entrepreneurs who started new businesses in Connecticut last year or the UConn startups, under the university’s Technology Incubation Program, who raised $60 million in 2017, we’re clearly deeply engaged in the digital economy. Industries such as insurance, finance and health care are at the forefront of digitalization, which makes this region a great place for people with tech skills to get a high paying job.

It’s time Hartford stopped beating itself up for not being home to the next Snapchat, and patted itself on the back for maintaining its insurance-capital-of-the-world status as insurance becomes a tech industry. The new Hartford InsureTech Hub incubator, a startup accelerator that supports new companies through mentorship and financing, is a great example of how we can innovate in legacy industries.

This is, after all, the Land of Steady Habits. So why wouldn’t our tech industry reflect that? We don’t have the Wild West, overnight millionaire culture of Silicon Valley, but why should a career in tech have to be boom or bust?

Some of us in the tech industry just want to live in a place with a good quality of life and build a solid business over time. That’s what I’ve be able to do here in Connecticut. After coming as a student from France, where I am originally from, I found a tech community here that I didn’t want to leave. I then co-founded a medical tech business with a global reach. We don’t often make headlines, but we employ more than 30 brilliant people in Connecticut and do innovative, groundbreaking work here.

It’s hard for people in Connecticut to feel proud of their state. I get that — there are a lot of issues we need to address. The first step, I think, is to embrace who we are and realize that, even in a digital economy, we are a leader, though we are doing it our way.

Severine Zygmont is chair of the Connecticut Technology Council board of directors and president of Oxford Performance Materials, Inc., of South Windsor.