Virginia’s Economic Development Agency Eyeing Quantum Computing

Recent advances in quantum computing have caused industry experts to believe it’s becoming viable, and Virginia wants in on the action, according to the latest edition of the Virginia Economic Review.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state’s economic development authority, used the most recent issue of its quarterly magazine to dive into the field of quantum computing – what it is and potential ways to bring it to Virginia. 

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Google and IBM Reverse Course on Race-Based Fellowships Following Backlash

The tech companies Google and IBM are backing off of previous plans to severely limit the number of White and Asian students who will be allowed to serve in their fellowships, after critical reporting of the plans resulted in backlash.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, previous reporting on the planned affirmative action policies cited several lawyers and other legal experts saying the moves would be in violation of civil rights laws and would likely face challenges if implemented. The companies had planned to implement a race-based cap on the number of White and Asian students that each university could nominate for the fellowships, in order to artificially increase the number of black and Hispanic students admitted instead.

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Commentary: A School Movement Targeting Minorities That Works, Progressives Don’t Like It

Michael Landsbaum hit bottom after his father lost his job and couldn’t pay rent, leaving the teenager homeless in Dallas. He slept on friends’ couches for months until he was rescued by an unlikely source: his high school.

But Pathways in Technology Early College High School did much more than provide him with a place to stay at a counselor’s home. Its accelerated program, including college courses, gave Landsbaum the drive to get through the tough times and the hope for better days.

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Commentary: ‘High-Skilled Immigrants Act’ Is a Sop to Big Tech

by Rachael Brovard   In a rare moment of bipartisanship last week, Democrats and Republicans joined hands to make a small, but fundamental change to our immigration system. Not to provide critically needed updates or wholesale reforms, but, rather, to toss a sop to the billionaires of Big Tech. Thanks to furious lobbying from Microsoft, Amazon, Hewlett Packard, Equifax, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, IBM, Cisco, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Eric Schmidt of Google’s group FWD.us, among others, the House this week passed H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019. The bill, which was supported by 140 Republicans and 224 Democrats, removes the per-country cap for employment-based immigration visas. In other words, it makes it easier for the tech giants and billionaires of Silicon Valley to hire cheap foreign labor over highly skilled Americans. Current law requires that no country receive more than 7 percent of the employment-based green cards issued each year. This ensures that employment-based visas are limited to a global pool of talent in a wide variety of occupational sectors – and prevents one or two countries from dominating the distribution. The practical effect is that individuals from countries with high demand for…

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