Yesterday, Lonnie Emard, our Executive Director, held our first Partner Progress Meeting at IT-oLogy. We had 40 individuals from corporate, academic and organization partners come to hear about our successes over the past nine months and to learn about our future. IT-oLogy has come a long way over the past three years. What started as the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management has turned into IT-oLogy, an organization with over 65 dedicated corporate partners, nearly 30 academic partners and a number of organization partners, all coming together as one to advance IT talent. Why are we working to advance IT talent? On Wednesday evening, WACH Fox aired a story about IT talent in South Carolina that I would like to share.
Over the summer, IT-oLogy staff worked diligently to strategize and plan for the upcoming year. We set a five distinct goals to accomplish; these goals were shared with our partners on Thursday.
1. Evolve partner management and business development methods and expand the corporate partner base.
2. Advance IT talent by making progress in all three initiatives – Promote IT (K-12), Teach IT (Higher Education) and Grow IT (Professionals).
3. Make a material step towards sustainable funding.
4. Grow the IT-oLogy marketing and public relations footprint.
5. Initiate academic programs on the System z mainframe.
To reach these goals, we need you. The seven IT-oLogy staff members cannot reach these goals alone. We ask our partners to join us in reaching these five goals. How can you help? We are looking for people to serve on different councils. These councils will help make strategic, effective decisions. Councils include: Partner Development Council, Financial Advisory Council, Communications Council, Project Council and a Volunteer Council. If you are interested in serving on any of the councils, please contact Alicia Thibaudet at [email protected] or 803.354.5730.
Thank you for your time, talent and resources you, as partners, dedicate to IT-oLogy. We would not be able to grow the IT talent pipeline without the collaboration and partnerships that bring us together as one.