As prepared.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Todd Sorenson and I’m the Deputy Mission Director for the United States Agency for International Development at our Regional Development Mission for Asia. I warmly welcome all of you to our USAID COMET Leadership Summit.

Today’s Leadership Summit announces the first 12 Mekong Learning Centers to officially join our program and also kicks-off a five-day training workshop for 60 instructors and administrators from each of the participating Lower Mekong countries (Burma-Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam).

Launched in April 2015, USAID COMET brings together public and private sector partners to help strengthen the youth workforce in the Lower Mekong. So actually we’re having our first birthday celebration a week from today and you’re all invited.

Having you, our Mekong Learning Center partners, here today is a big step forward for the USAID COMET program. You and our private sector partners such as Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, HP and Google are helping to close the regional skills gap. Your collective efforts will help young people; especially young women, be competitive and succeed in an ever evolving business environment – one that demands a strong mix of technical, work readiness and foundational skills that use the latest technology.

I like to use real numbers in expressing ideas so it’s useful to cite a recent finding from our 2016 USAID COMET Labor Market Assessment. We found that 71 percent of employers in the Lower Mekong are currently hiring candidates with technical qualifications. In the booming telecommunications industry, for example, top employers receive an average of nearly 100 applications for every vacancy. This tells me something. This tells me that young people really need to find a way to stand out beyond merely having basic core technical skills.

This is where the USAID COMET program comes into relevance. Our program focuses on the skills demanded by the employers of today and tomorrow. And you, our Mekong Learning Center partners, will be better equipped to close the regional skills gap as well as leverage the rapid regional integration and economic growth resulting from the ASEAN Economic Community as a result.

I’m pretty sure you already know that today’s and tomorrow’s employers are looking for talent who possess English language and computer technology skills. But equally important are the soft skills like adaptability, teamwork, communication and interpersonal skills rank almost as high on their hiring criteria.

We have some serious challenges to contend with. Our Labor Market Assessment revealed that while 72 percent of the companies surveyed for the study claim they don’t have gender preferences in their hiring decisions, roughly 80 percent of those companies consistently hire men over women. So we have our work cut out for us in not only closing the skills gap, but the gender gap as well.

We believe stronger collaboration between industry and workforce training institutions, like yours, will result in a better-prepared workforce that meets employer skill requirements and helps students gain a competitive edge.

To address this challenge, USAID COMET is following a work-based learning approach to help students gain valuable work experiences, work exposure, apprenticeships, internships, externships, on-the-job training opportunities and mentorships intended to reinforce and expand on classroom learning with practical, hands-on opportunities.

This year, with your help, we expect to register 48 university and vocational school instructors on our upcoming MekongSkills2Work online training portal. We’ll be unveiling the portal this fall. We also expect at least 10,000 new users to join the site and be active learners by this time next year. We plan to reach 15,000 vocational school students as part of our regular outreach efforts and expect we’ll help roughly 80 percent of participating university students receive instruction through the MekongSkills2 work online portal. As an agency, we strongly encourage the use of Science, Technology, Innovations and Partnerships in our programs. And the portal is an example of that.

The foundation of USAID COMET’s long-term success and sustainability depends on a strong working relationship with all of you here today. I’m confident that we can help close the skills gap and improve the life chances and livelihoods of your students and help us reach our collective goal to positively impact 250,000 students and instructors throughout the region by 2019. We’ve already exceeded last year’s target of 100,000 followers and likes on social media of all kinds. We expect that number to grow now that we have you onboard.  

The Mekong Learning Centers are critical in helping USAID attain our mutual goals. The path is clear and it’s now is the time to put our ideas to work and close the skills gap for the economic future of not just the Lower Mekong, but perhaps ASEAN as a whole. You’re leading the way! Thank you for being part of this amazing program."