Recently, I got on the phone with Van Jones (pictured), former special advisor for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation at the White House, who is now fighting to build a learn-to-earn pipeline for 100,000 low-opportunity youth.

He was blunt in his assessment. "Silicon Valley is underperforming. It is ripe for disruption."

Enter #YesWeCode, which is designed to get young people to see technology as a pathway to prosperity. It is also designed to get the tech industry to notice that they are, according to Van, "leaving talent at the table."

This was echoed last week in a Wall Street Journal piece called, "Is Silicon Valley Funding the Wrong Stuff?" The article argued that "the entire Bay Area appears to have given up on solving anything but its own problems: those afflicting the same 20-somethings who are building these startups."

The article essentially concludes that the problem is not a lack of entrepreneurs. The problem is venture capitalists who are not funding more diverse, more relevant ideas with staying power that impact medicine, energy, and food safety, among other areas.

Clay was pointing to a Silicon Valley disruption – the development of tools to allow government and citizens to engage more effectively. In the last few years, we've seen technology merge with government, politics, and citizens for campaigns, world crises, and issue-based organizing.

Today, Silicon Valley needs to understand that what's good for society is also good for business. And society includes more people than the 20-something white males who currently dominate the tech industry. I am not saying that the problems currently being solved don't need to be solved – they do. However, there are more problems out there that impact other groups of people that can also be solved and also be prosperous.

This is where #YesWeCode comes in. Van Jones is working with low- opportunity youth and high-opportunity companies, heavyweights like Google and Facebook and newcomers like Mighty Bell and Qeyno Labs. He recruited support from foundations like Ford and Kellog and media sponsors like Essence – all which believe in the need for diversity of talent and thought in the tech industry.

By developing technologists from communities that have not been part of Silicon Valley, and by infusing this new talent into the tech industry, you not only seed the creation of new, relevant products and services, but you also tap into emerging markets – something that can be good for everyone.