By TechNet President and CEO Linda Moore

One month from today, CEOs, founders, and senior executives from our member companies will meet with Congressional leadership, White House, and Cabinet officials during TechNet Day (March 23-25). This year, TechNet Day will be held virtually over three days and will bring together our member company CEOs and senior executives with leaders from both political parties.

TechNet Day serves as an opportunity to champion a comprehensive pro-innovation agenda with lawmakers and drive the conversation on many critical issues: COVID recovery, immigration, racial inequality, and climate change. During TechNet Day, we will advocate for policies that help workers, consumers, and businesses grow and thrive in the months and years ahead.

This year, TechNet launched a new policy agenda focused on four main pillars: enable inclusive job growth; empower the workforce of tomorrow; ensure our global competitiveness; and promote digital trust. We will push for policies that advance those four pillars but recognize we must also get our global health crisis under control. COVID-19 underscores the imperative for a strong technology and innovation sector to sustain business operations, protect jobs, and fuel economic growth.

TechNet members have powered America during the pandemic. They’ve produced personal protective equipment and ventilators, helped scientists discover drug treatments and research vaccines, reduced barriers to telework options, connected students and teachers, delivered food, provided emergency transportation, and facilitated contact tracing, all while upholding our IT infrastructures. Technology has been used to address health challenges, sustain business and government operations, and educate our children during the pandemic, and will serve as a catalyst for our nation’s recovery.

But we need federal investment to help spur U.S. innovation. Comprehensive, targeted investments in emerging technologies will cement our global leadership and ensure America sets the rules for the use of these homegrown technologies. That includes investing in job training to support these new technologies and helping those who have lost work due to the pandemic. It also includes fostering an ecosystem where startups can grow and thrive.

One way to help businesses succeed is through much-needed immigration reform. Immigrants are essential to our economy and recovery. That has been true throughout our history, with immigrant innovators, entrepreneurs, and workers woven into the fabric of our country. We must pass much-needed bipartisan reform and fix our broken immigration system that has, for far too long, stifled innovation and stunted job growth.

By welcoming the best and the brightest, we ensure our economy remains robust and innovative and reflects the diversity of our nation. No matter someone’s nationality, race, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity, we must embrace policies that promote an inclusive workforce and reject all forms of discrimination. We will work with lawmakers to remove institutional barriers to opportunity and push them to act swiftly toward full equality and civic life for all

We will also push lawmakers to immediately take action on climate change, one of the most critical global issues of our time. We will advocate for policies that foster and promote a climate for innovation while providing safeguards against inaction. Our industry takes responsibility for its role in addressing this issue and is committed to driving a cleaner, brighter, more energy-efficient future.

TechNet Day serves as an opportunity for our member company CEOs and senior executives to talk about these issues and many more with the leaders of our federal government. We look forward to working with lawmakers to enable inclusive job growth, empower the workforce of tomorrow, ensure our nation’s global competitiveness, and promote digital trust.