A vision for the CNMI

Every day I read the newspaper and it’s pretty obvious what the current economic forces are. Tourism dominates everything and the local economy is subject to its waxing and waning. Other big employers are service providers like CHCC and CUC, but they often go to the U.S. mainland to fill their best positions. Wages here are low, tourism can be fickle, and it seems like every debate is a trade off between increased economic activity and handing control to foreign companies. What is a commonwealth to do?

I humbly suggest investing in high skill, technology related work. Every year, companies are hiring more remote workers: software engineers, Web developers, data analysts, and designers. These are skilled jobs that pay salaries of $60,000 to $100,000, don’t require degrees, and can be done from half a world away. The demand is incredibly high, and the CNMI has an advantage by being part of the U.S., but more importantly has no real disadvantages. This is not a race to the bottom, not about the cheapest labor; it’s about who can do the work. Half of my colleagues in Seattle are self-taught, and the CNMI has access to all of the same educational and technical resources.

We should be encouraging residents to start their own online companies. You would be surprised what you can do with a little experience in a niche market (like garment manufacturing) and creating an online application designed to service that industry. Even if you don’t have a brilliant idea of your own, Web and mobile contracting is a large and growing industry. With so many multilingual residents, the CNMI has access to English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and other international markets.

So, how do we turn the CNMI into a tech hub? Step one is by building skills and community. Some have already started by joining the Saipan Tech Collective (fb.com/SaipanTech) for mentorship and collaboration. Step two, we need a private or public angel fund to invest in early stage startups. Investing $10K in 10 startups every year would result in incredible growth and provide an excellent opportunity for the CNMI’s current business leaders to reinvest in the local economy. Lastly, anything that would push the availability of high speed Internet access would greatly help the success of tech here. We need a pervasive 4G cellular network that offers access to even remote locations.

Will this create work for everyone? Certainly not. But even 100 of these jobs would infuse another $5 million into the local economy, and that’s an easily attainable, conservative estimate. We can foster and retain our intellectual talent, perhaps even attracting outside talent with the dream of island living. We can diversify the economy a bit, taking a few eggs out of the tourism basket. Interested? Take the first step, go to www.codecademy.com to start learning and then join the STC (fb.com/SaipanTech) so we can build this tech community.

Alec Koumjian
Papago, Saipan