V1 — First Published May 4, 2026

Originating Author · Technician Economy™

Parminder K.
Jassal

Author of the Technician Economy™ · CEO & Co-Founder, Unmudl

Parminder K. Jassal is the originating author of the Technician Economy™, an economic framework defining how industry demand is converted into deployable technician capacity to produce operating capacity and durable economic mobility at scale.

She is the CEO and co-founder of Unmudl, which serves as the Skills-to-Jobs® technician coordination infrastructure underpinning the Technician Economy™ designed to coordinate employer demand, community and technical college delivery, and technician deployment.

The Technician Economy™ is the result of a continuous line of work spanning industry experiences, regional economic development, philanthropy, working-learner strategy, futures research, social technology incubation, and national Skills-to-Jobs® infrastructure design.

Primary publication: https://www.technicianeconomy.org

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Author

Parminder K. Jassal

Primary Work

Technician Economy™

Version

Version 1 (V1)

First Published

May 4th, 2026

Role

CEO & Co-Founder, Unmudl

Career Timeline

A Continuous Line
of Work

01
IND

Early Career: Industry, Technical and System Exposure

Industry, Technical and System Exposure

Parminder K. Jassal began her career in the private sector working directly within infrastructure and operational systems, prior to entering economic development and philanthropy.

She worked in fiber optics and network systems as an Associate Network Engineer at a Silicon Valley startup, International Network Services, supporting telecommunications infrastructure during a period of rapid expansion in digital networks.

Earlier in her career, she worked within:

Atlantic Richfield Oil Company (ARCO), including operations connected to the Arctic Slope, where large-scale industrial systems depend on precise execution in extreme environments

Ford Motor Company dealership operations, where performance is directly tied to the coordination of technical labor, systems, and service delivery

Silicon Valley and her own startups, operating in high-growth, technology-driven environments

During the period at International Network Services, Parminder worked with Jon Rolph, who emphasized the distinction between engineering design and the practical training required to execute and maintain systems in the field. This distinction between engineering skillsets and technician skillsets proved foundational. It highlighted that successful system deployment depends not only on design expertise, but on the presence of trained technicians capable of translating design into operational reality.

This early experience exposed a recurring and consistent pattern:

Systems could be designed and capitalized

Innovation was advancing rapidly

Capital was being deployed

Operational execution depended on technical talent that was often misaligned

Performance ultimately hinged on skilled technical execution

Technician capacity determined whether execution could occur at scale

Deployment execution was frequently the constraint

First Exposure

This was the first direct, practical exposure to what is now defined as the gap between innovation and deployment, or the Innovation–Deployment Gap, within the Technician Economy™ framework.

02
REG

Economic Development: First System-Level Lens

Greater Louisville Region

Parminder transitioned into economic development in the Greater Louisville region, where she worked in a nonprofit capacity focused on regional growth and competitiveness.

During this period, she also earned her doctorate from the University of Louisville.

This experience introduced a broader systems perspective:

How regions compete for investment

How workforce, education, and industry interact

How institutional misalignment limits economic outcomes

System-Level Shift

This was the first point where the problem was visible not just at the company level, but at the regional economic system level.

03
PHIL

Postsecondary Strategy: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Parminder later joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working on postsecondary strategy at national scale focused on improving outcomes for students and aligning education with economic opportunity.

Public references:

https://www.edupexperience.com/ParminderJassal2/

https://legacy.iftf.org/parminderjassal/

This work included:

designing models connecting education and employment

advancing work-integrated learning approaches

contributing to large-scale postsecondary system initiatives

Key Understanding

This phase deepened the understanding that improving outcomes required not just programs, but system-level coordination between institutions and employers.

04
ACT

ACT Foundation

Founding Executive Director, ACT Foundation

Parminder was then named the founding executive director of the ACT Foundation, where the Foundation's stated objective was improving underserved students' success in education and the workplace. ACT's public materials from that period centered heavily on the Rise of the Working Learner and the need for stronger integration between working and learning.

The working-learner frame is an important bridge in the intellectual development of the Technician Economy™. Georgetown CEW's Learning While Earning documented the scale and distinct behavior of working learners, while ACT Foundation's literature review defined working learners as people working for pay while enrolled in formal learning programs leading to recognized credentials. ACT Foundation's New Learning Economy framing further argued for better learn-and-earn opportunities, clearer work pathways, and stronger alignment between learning and life outcomes.

https://www.act.org/content/act/en/newsroom/jassal-named-executive-director-of-act-foundation.html

ACT Foundation — Working Learners Literature Review

ACT Foundation — New Learning Economy: Rise of the Working Learner

Georgetown CEW — Recovery Report

05
IFTF

Futures Lens: Institute for the Future

Work + Learn Futures Lab, IFTF

Parminder then founded and led the Work + Learn Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future, focusing on how learning and work systems were evolving.

Primary sources:

https://legacy.iftf.org/learningfutures/

https://legacy.iftf.org/parminderjassal/

https://legacy.iftf.org/aiforces/