Leaders in Nashville’s tech industry asked the mayoral candidates how technology should be used to drive the city’s growth. The answers at Wednesday’s forum, hosted by the Nashville Technology Council, ranged from teaching coding in schools to keeping government data transparent.

Each candidate had a spiel to appeal to the crowd of tech-minded voters. 
Businesswoman Linda Rebrovick
highlighted her experience at computer companies like IBM and Dell. County criminal clerk Howard Gentry talked about making sure all neighborhoods have Internet access. 
Charter school founder Jeremy Kane stressed the importance of data — for example, to track crime throughout the city.

Data was also a priority for attorney Charles Robert Bone, he said, when looking at problems like homelessness and poverty.

“Look, if we can’t measure it, how are we going to manage it?” he said.

David Fox, a one-time school board chairman, said the city’s next superintendent — a position decided by the school board, but perhaps with the mayor’s input —
 should value technology in schools. City councilwoman Megan Barry also talked about the importance of schools, but for a different reason: so that Nashville can recruit better tech workers.

But even among this crowd, technology was not necessarily a top priority when assessing candidates.

“I’m not too worried about whether they’re ‘tech people’ or whatever,” said Ben Henderson, a 
partner at Firefly Logic, a small Nashville software development company. “
I just want someone who’s a good leader and has really great ideas.”

And someone who can implement those ideas, said Jason Bowles, account executive for software company Lokion Interactive.

“You can create things all day, but you have to create something that is usable and sustainable for everybody,” he said.