Eric Larson Posts

In America, we often like to quote that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Unfortunately, the effectiveness of prevention is hard for a government agency or a nonprofit organization to measure and prove. (It’s near impossible to count bad things that fail to happen due to a smart intervention.)So, instead, our society tends to fund expense mechanisms that react to problems once they do happen.Year Up is one of several workforce development organizations pointing to the new report ...

We were recently bowled over by the generosity of employees at Trend Micro, who reached down deep before the holidays to help veterans who are trying to make it in the IT field.Their generosity will help Creating IT Futures recruit more veterans to the IT-Ready Apprentice Program, which is launching in 2012.Including the Foundation in the mix of worthy causes just made sense, said Mike Menegay, who oversaw the giving program while he was employed as the company’s VP of Global Alliances."Trend Mi ...

A program that trains and places new IT workers in six-month apprenticeships is two steps closer to reality. Just before the holidays, the Foundation's staff traveled to Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cincinnati to meet with potential employers and non-profit partners in those cities about the Foundation’s new IT-Ready Apprentice Program.Charles Eaton (Executive Director), Pamela Green (Board Member), Colleen Robbins (Dir. of Development), and Amy Spear (Program Manager)The response was overwhelmingly ...

Diana Nyad is one of those people put on Planet Earth to make the rest of us look lazy.At age 62, Nyad recently attempted for the third time to swim the 103 nautical miles from Cuba to Florida.Her first two attempts ended short of the goal. She met with mishaps such as bad storms, an asthma attack and a shoulder injury.This time, things started out a lot more encouraging. A shark that threatened to put a stop to her swim got rebuffed by her helpful team. Her shoulder was strong; she was averagin ...

This will only take a moment: Vote online right now and bring significant attention to an innovative program that readies inner-city high schoolers for tech careers.Chicago Tech Academy is one of 75 finalists (out of 400 nominees!) for the Chicago Innovation Awards. Today it needs your help to get to the top 10.CompTIA and the Creating IT Futures Foundation have been supporting the school for several years. Placing in the Top 10 would give the school even more valuable publicity so it can attrac ...

By the time she had graduated from Stanford University, Stephanie Brown had already completed internships with Fortune 500 companies Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Deloitte. She was only 21.No wonder, then, that Microsoft’s human resources department tracked her down, offering her a position she had not even applied for: helping the company’s enterprise customers in the Southeast streamline their IT infrastructure.Getting connected with BDPA in high school put Stephanie Brown on a learni ...

At least one summer camp for kids has much more to do with megabytes than mosquito bites.TECHie Camp gives students third-grade through eighth-grade hands-on experience with everything from robotics to app development to web programming. The camp is operated in five states by TECH CORPS, an organization that partners with K-12 schools around the country to reach young people with life-changing technological learning experiences.TECH CORPS’ dedication to equipping the next generation of technolog ...

The CompTIA Educational Foundation, which since 1998 has been helping unemployed and other at-risk individuals find careers in information technology, has a new name: the Creating IT Futures Foundation.The new name will help to distinguish the Foundation from other continuing education and educational programs within CompTIA, while also positioning the Foundation to reach a wider donor base.As it pondered a new name, the Foundation’s Board of Directors considered the essence of what the organiza ...

The Fourth of July holiday seemed perfect timing for a recent gift by our member communities.The IT Business Growth Professionals Community, one of 10 communities within the CompTIA membership, made a $5,000 gift to Veterans Inc. which helps veterans improve their lives in the areas of housing, employment and health.“This is an opportunity to say thank you to those who have served,” said Ken Thoreson, chair of the ITBGP Community and president of Acumen Management Group in Tennessee. “We were ex ...

The popular perception of the IT industry often conjures images of computers, software, and networking gear — the rudiments of an emotionless, digital world.But a series of gifts by CompTIA, the IT industry trade association, through its 10 official communities around the globe, is showing that IT is just as much about connecting people to the needs in their communities as it is about running cable.CompTIA VP Jim Hamilton“This is a way for people to think how the IT industry is giving back. It’s ...