Proud to Be a Parent of a Techie

Forget doctors and lawyers. Today parents want their children to become high-tech whizzes when they grow up.

That’s the finding of a survey conducted by the organizers of National Techies Day, an event to be held Tuesday to honor technology professionals and encourage kids to pursue tech careers.

Three-quarters of survey respondents said it is more important to study technology than to study business, and 72% said technology is more important than medicine and 58% said it is more important than law. In addition, 61% of respondents said they would pursue technology careers themselves if they could turn back the clock.

Survey respondents named the computer the most important tech invention of the century, followed by television, automobiles and the Internet. Bill Gates narrowly beat Henry Ford in the survey vote for “Techie of the Century.”