Cable tech vet Maria Popo quietly took the helm of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) late last year as president and CEO and has had her nose to the grindstone reshaping the organization's strategy and her vision for the group ever since.

Popo, a former exec at DOCSIS device maker Ubee Interactive, says she has been charged specifically with focusing on SCTE's workforce development initiatives and has been meeting with various members and non-members to figure the right path forward.

Building more efficiency into SCTE's learning and development capabilities is a big part of the process. SCTE has at least 1,000 hours of courses available (online and some, such as "boot camps" and fiber trainings, that are administered in-person), and Popo says she's figuring out which ones are still relevant and needed by cable operators.

"In a lot of cases, what we've been good at is [knowing] the operators. We know best practices [and] operational practices, but some of the content is easily available elsewhere," she explains.

The general idea is to provide fewer courses and reduce the required maintenance of them. That means first gathering data to figure out which are in highest demand.

"It's just like commercializing a product," Popo says, noting that fiber installation courses along with those focused on mobile and wireless and DOCSIS 4.0 are among the highest in demand currently.  

SCTE has made progress with that process (both internally and with partners), and Popo is set to discuss a "workforce readiness ecosystem" and the role of AI during Tuesday morning's general opening session at TechExpo 2024 in Atlanta.

Focusing on standards

Another aim is to build a connection between SCTE's learning and development offerings with industry standards.

"It makes a lot of sense to ensure that we're producing standards and new specs," Popo says. "On the learning side, we should be aligned with that and we should be creating the content at the same time."

SCTE, now a subsidiary of CableLabs, is also the industry's standards-setting organization. A recent focus has been on standards for a new wave of "smart amps," including connected amps equipped with transponders that can support the Full Duplex (FDX) flavor of DOCSIS 4.0.

Popo also plans to fully engage with SCTE's various chapters and attempt to eliminate silos between them.

"When I look at that piece of it, the chapters really come into play because there's a ton of data that says social capital not only helps you with your career and your company because of the connections that you have, but it also helps this equity gap piece," says Popo.