On Tuesday, fifty tech CEOs and app makers from across the country travel to Washington to meet with officials in the White House, Congress, and the FTC to advocate for Immigration, STEM, and privacy issues.  They will be taking part in the Association for Competitive Technology’s (ACT) Washington Fly-In, an annual event for tech companies to promote policies that allow small business technology companies to innovate and grow.

ACT members are coming to Washington to ensure lawmakers and regulators hear the voices of small business tech companies.  The pace of innovation is remarkable, but that could change suddenly with overreaching legislation or regulation. Our members will meet with their elected representatives to tell the story of their companies’ success and what they need (and don’t need) to continue to grow and create jobs.

Specifically, ACT members will advocate for solutions that:

• Implement a program to provide students with the computer science education that will help them qualify for rewarding careers in the tech industry. This will foster growth in our U.S. software development workforce where chronic labor shortages persist;
• Fund STEM education initiatives through increased fees from H-1B visas and green cards. This addresses the short-term urgency to find high skilled workers while laying the groundwork to grow the U.S. high skilled technology workforce;
• Allow internet companies to implement new solutions for data transparency; Congress should resist the urge to apply broad regulatory restrictions that would deny consumers many of the products and services they rely on every day;
• Allow small software companies to protect their intellectual property without having to fight patent trolls and speculative lawsuits; and
• Ensure that the government does not impede efforts to strengthen and expand our internet infrastructure so consumers can benefit from more reliable mobile and fixed data connectivity.

These are issues the federal government is facing. ACT members are looking forward to meeting with their elected officials and others in Washington to educate them about the technology industry so they can make the right decisions about our future. Hopefully, an informed Congress will allow small tech companies to continue to flourish.