The techies are coming, the techies are coming. (So is a sex survey.)

There’s long been a desire – mostly on the part of hopeful politicians – to turn the Salinas Valley into a mini Silicon Valley. The economic development rhetoric generally goes like this: If we do a, b and c (for example, create a new website, craft a nifty slogan and woo them with tax incentives), we can lure a division of Sony or Oracle or [insert name of tech giant here], create the kind of middle-class jobs that will keep voters happy, bolster residential real estate back to something that looks like normal and transform the economy.

The reality is, we can’t. We never could. We don’t have the infrastructure, like reliable high-speed wireless throughout the county. We don’t have a workforce in place, trained and ready to meet the needs of the tech world. We are playing catch-up on educating the next generation, and while it’s good catch up (witness the partnership between CSU-Monterey Bay and Hartnell College to offer a three-year bachelor’s in Computer Science and Information Technology), it’s still catch-up.

But one smart guy who lives down the road in Santa Cruz County thinks we can do it internally: create our own little tech ecosystem, educate kids and create jobs.

Bud Colligan has created tech jobs and grown revenue before. He was an early employee of Apple, co-creator and then chairman and CEO of Macromedia (maker of Flash, later acquired by Adobe). He’s now an investor – a benevolent one, evidence suggests – and unlike previous iterations of this economic development game, he believes in putting his money where his mouth is.

“WE WANT TO ENABLE THIS REGION WITH HIGH-SPEED INTERNET.”

Colligan threw down $100,000, asked the Fort Ord Reuse Authority to pony up cash too, and has created the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, a tri-county effort aimed at growing the economy.

The group’s first conference is happening Jan. 28 at the Embassy Suites, and it’s probably sold out. MBEP will open an office somewhere on the Peninsula. And then they’ll get to work.

In tech-speak, this is a long-tail effort. It’s going to take years, and force of will.

“The conference is about setting an agenda for the area, laying out some of the aspirational goals of what we’re trying to do and holding people accountable for it,” he says. (Let me point out, none of these economic development types who come to town ever use the A-for-accountability word.) “We want to enable this region with high-speed [Internet] so transformative applications can be built and people will see this as a progressive area.”

Good stuff. Unlike most things, this one leaves me optimistic. Here are a few other things to chew on.

We’ve said it before, but here it is one more time: You, the generous donors of Monterey County Gives!, the Weekly’s annual drive to support the Big Ideas of local nonprofits, broke the previous record set in 2013 by donating a whopping $1,347,741 in 2014.

One of the best parts of the post-Gives! bliss is giving out the Ingenuity Award, a special bit of cash to the nonprofit we think had an extra-special idea. This year, the $2,500 Ingenuity Award goes to the Friends of the Salinas Public Libraries, which is taking the ice-cream cart concept and turning it on its ear. The Friends’ idea, PALETERO Push Carts (for Providing Access, Literacy and Education Through Engaging Residents Outside Library Walls) will send ice-cream-style carts stocked with books and outfitted with free wireless into East Salinas. Residents can register onsite for library cards and use the wireless hotspot and accompanying technology to surf the web. That is a pretty cool idea. The Ingenuity Award ups the Friends’ Gives! total to almost $5,000.

On another note: sex. We’re going to be asking you about it via an anonymous survey in the, err, coming days. What do you like, what do you dislike, and with whom? And how often? And where and why?

We’ll post the survey to Facebook and send it out in the Monday Extra Helping of Squid newsletter. And then we’ll tell you the story of sex in Monterey County in an upcoming issue.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan.