INPUT
BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP IN AV
In Conversation with AVIXA Foundation’s Heidi Voorhees & Joseph Valerio
At
The 2020 NAMM Show, the
AVIXA Foundation, the chari-
table arm of the Audiovisual
and Integrated Experience
Association, and Canadian
loudspeaker manufacturer Adamson Systems
Engineering announced their partnership
on the Winding Roads Education Series. The
program is designed to introduce secondary
and post-secondary students to the many
potential career opportunities in pro AV and
live production.
Shortly after the announcement, Profes-
sional Sound spoke with AVIXA Foundation
Program Director Joseph Valerio and AVIXA
Foundation Executive Director and AVIXA COO
Heidi Voorhees to talk about this and other
initiatives the organization is spearheading to
close the AV industry’s skills gap.
PS: Before we get to Winding Roads and
other specific initiatives, can you give us
a general overview of the AVIXA Founda-
tion’s high-level goals and objectives when
it comes to bridging the skills gap in the
AV industry?
Voorhees: The Foundation started its new
strategic plan in 2019, and we have a lot of
initiatives we’re working through. Last year was
very much a planning year, so in 2020, we’re
really starting to make some moves. We have
three main goals and initiatives in this regard.
First is awareness – just making young
people aware that there are career opportuni-
ties in AV, and that’s where we’re focusing a
lot of our time and energy at this point. Our
target is mostly high-school students as well as
those in community college and technical and
vocational schools, as they’re the ones coming
into the workforce the soonest who can make
the biggest impact.
Second is what we call enablement. That
involves providing a curriculum to schools so
we can actually teach those skills, and work-
ing with schools and community groups to
expose young people to AV by having them
come to our tarde shows and provide different
forms of training. That also includes providing
scholarships so they can go to school and focus
on AV. We have two new scholarships for this
year: a diversity scholarship and one focused
on women.
Our third objective is connection – con-
necting those students we’re engaging with
the industry and forging career opportunities.
With these goals, we’re essentially focused
on three different constituent groups. We’re
reaching out to students directly, there’s teach-
ers, who are the role models and conduit to the
AVIXA FOUNDATION'S JOSEPH VALERIO ADDRESSING YOUTH AT A WINDING ROADS EDUCATION SERIES EVENT
students, and then our AVIXA members, who we
want to empower to go into their communities,
go into their local schools and clubs, and show
what the AV industry has to offer.
PS: Tell us about the partnership with Ad-
amson on the Winding Roads Education
Series, and where you see its value in terms
of supporting those objectives?
Valerio: It’s about making more young people
– particularly Generation Z – aware of our indus-
try and its opportunities. We think a great way
to do that is meeting students where they are,
right in their communities, and then focusing
on the passion they already have for some parts
of our industry. When they find out the things
they’re already doing for fun – DJing, virtual real-
ity, e-sports, etc. – are aligned with our industry,
they’re more eager to connect.
We’ve already launched a number of initia-
tives to help students make those connections
between their interests and our industry, and
one is the Winding Roads Education Series.
We’ve also launched our “Tech Crew” initia-
tive, which is kind of a reinvention of the AV club
idea. We want to bring this into schools to help
kids get hands-on with equipment and technol-
ogy and expand on their passions.
Then, once we’ve made that spark, it’s
about teaching skills, working directly with
schools and community organizations. We’ve
developed partnerships with schools to offer
our curriculum leading to AVIXA certifications
and exam training, which will give students a
leg up when it comes to internships and hiring
with AVIXA’s member companies. It’s like a direct
pipeline to career opportunities.
Winding Roads is an opportunity for us to
go right into a community and show them
these opportunities. Here, we’re leveraging
live music to create awareness of careers in AV
and production. It gives them access to pro-
fessionals right in their area that are already
successful in these jobs along with artists
they look up to, and then they see first-hand
how these things all come together, and how
much potential there is for a career in an area
they already love.
PS: You’ve said your current focus is
mostly on that first pillar of awareness
and engagement, but ultimately, the goal
is to have AVIXA members take the ball
and run with it by working directly with
youth in their own communities. What
does that ideally look like?
Voorhees: This year, we’re doing a few Wind-
ing Roads events in Canada, and then looking
to do some similar events in the U.S. where we
can bring groups of students around a con-
cert and educate them on what’s happening
behind the scenes. We want to spread those
opportunities around geographically, too.
Then, in the next month, we’re going to
be launching a campaign out to our members
with a toolkit to help them go into schools
and youth clubs in their area and engage
students in cool venues where they already
are. So initially, we’ll be doing a few as a
Foundation and using those as something of
a template to engage people and show our
members what we can do. Then, we’re hoping
that our members can take the leadership in
some of those areas and continue that work
– to empower those in the industry to take
the model we’ve created and expand on it.
For more on the AVIXA Foundation and
its work, visit www.avixa.org/foundation
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 9