Cyber City, USA News

In most states, computer science does not satisfy core graduation requirements.
Computer scientists are in high demand, but only a fraction of U.S. high schools offer advanced training on the subject—and that fraction is shrinking.
Of the more than 42,000 public and private high schools in the United States, only 2,100 high schools offered the Advanced Placement test in computer science last year, down 25 percent over the past five years, according to a recent report by Microsoft.
[Learn why high school students need to think, not memorize.]
In schools where computer science is offered, it often does not count toward graduation. Only nine states—Georgia, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma...

James Aldridge - Web Editor- San Antonio Business Journal

San Antonio’s economy remains one of the healthiest in Texas and the nation. And that’s thanks in large part to the region’s booming biomedical sector.

In looking at occupational data released by the Texas Workforce Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, six out of 10 of the projected high-growth professions in Bexar County between now and 2014 will be in the medical industry. The other high-growth professions are in technology and education.

The health care and biotechnology industry has an annual economic impact of $15.3 billion. This industry collectively employs 112,762 people in San Antonio.

The San Antonio Business...

Mike W. Thomas - San Antonio Business Journal

San Antonio-based Denim Group, a software application security company, is launching its first commercial product to address a consistent problem the company has seen with many of its clients over the years.

Denim has been successful as a service provider and consultant for many Fortune 500 companies, helping them to address security vulnerabilities with custom-built software and applications. So why make the move into product sales?

John Dickson, a principal with Denim Group, says the reason is because the company keeps seeing the same problem crop up over and over again with many of their clients.

James Aldridge - San Antonio Business Journal

San Antonio is one of the best cities in the country for young professionals, according to Careerbliss.com and Forbes Magazine.
Careerbliss.com produced a list of 20 of the cities in America with the happiest young professionals as ranked by employee-generated reviews. The site analyzed 38,000 reviews between 2011 and 2012 to rank each city on a five-point scale.
San Antonio ranked 10th on the list, while Irving ranked 13th, Plano ranked 18th and Houston ranked 20th.

Sources: Dallas Business Journal, Forbes.

Teaching people to code is the new hotness: startups like Codecademy and Bloc are all about helping people learn to program quickly and easily online, and they have helped spawn a cultural movement lauded by the likes of Tim O’Reilly and Douglas Rushkoff.

Some people are taking the idea a little further however.

Just look at Estonia, the tiny Eastern European nation (population 1.3 million), where a new project is being put in place with the ambition of getting every six year old to learn coding at school.

The “ProgeTiiger” scheme, according to reports, will begin pilots this year with the ambition of getting school kids of all ages to start coding. There’s no suggestion yet that the classes will be...

San Antonio Business Journal by James Aldridge, Web Editor

AT&T is making a big push in Texas to upgrade its 4G network and give its mobile customers faster speeds.

AT&T invested nearly $1.1 billion in its Texas wireless and wireline networks during the first half of 2012 as a way to enhance and upgrade its 4G service.
AT&T erected new towers and activated new cell sites to improve network coverage and added spectrum capacity to support additional traffic throughout all the major markets in Texas, including San Antonio. AT&T also built a new cell site at Woller Creek in San Antonio.
AT&T officials say its 4G LTE service delivers speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G.
...

San Antonio Business Journal by James Aldridge, Web Editor
Rackspace is acquiring a San Francisco startup company.

Rackspace Hosting has agreed to buy startup company Mailgun Inc. as part of a plan to integrate Mailgun’s technology into Rackspace’s product portfolio and enhance Rackspace’s cloud-based offering.
Terms were not disclosed. Combining the two technologies should give customers the ability to integrate cloud-based email services into applications and Web sites within minutes.
Mailgun is based in San Francisco. The company’s employees will work alongside Rackspace employees already based in San Francisco.
San Antonio-based Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) hosts Web sites, email and...

Lanam Napier, CEO of San Antonio-based Rackspace Managed Hosting, one of the IT industry’s shining stars, was featured on CNBC last week and said the strong work ethic in Texas is one reason the company has remained in San Antonio.

“We were pressured early on to move the company to California,” Napier said. “Texas works for us because we have a talent advantage. What is unique about Texas is the people have a can-do attitude; they’re entrepreneurial, and they want to go for it. So the techs we recruit in Texas stick with us.”

He also addressed the opportunity the company has for growth.

“We have a couple of hundred customers all over the world. Our next expansion will be in Asia - Pac,” he said. “We...