US IT giant IBM on Wednesday announced the initiation of an array of programs and resources to help students and technology professionals to help prepare them for future jobs.
IBM's initiatives include new training courses and resources for IT professionals, technology and curriculum materials for educators and expanded programs to directly engage students with real-world business challenges.
The new programs were planned to reduce the critical technology skills gap that was outlined in IBM's 2012 Tech Trends Report. The report was made by the IBM Center for Applied Insights.
The report found that only one in 10 organizations has the skills needed to effectively apply advanced technologies such as business analytics, mobile computing, cloud computing and social business.
The report also revealed that nearly half the number of educators and students surveyed felt that there is a major gap in their institution's ability to meet the growing demand for advanced technology skills.
"Having a highly skilled workforce is critical to an organization's ability to innovate, meet client demands and grow," said Jim Corgel, general manager academic and developer relations, IBM.
He further said, "In response to the growing IT skill gap, IBM is expanding its skill development programs in key areas such as cyber security, mobile computing and commerce."
Training Courses and Resources Offered to IT Professionals
Courses will be mainly focused on 'Mobile Computing', 'Cyber Security' and 'Commerce Technology'.
The 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report cited the lack of professionals with business analytics expertise as the number one barrier to adoption of newer technology trends.
The courses are framed to include Smarter Commerce and Digital Analytics that complement new educational materials, which would help IT professionals stay updated with rapidly evolving technologies.
New Programs for Students
IBM has come up with new programs to help students understand the importance of advanced technologies, like business analytics and security, to a variety of career paths such a business, marketing and science.
Programs include:
Virtual Career Event: Provides a platform for students to interact with world's leading technology experts. Event will be held on Feb 5, 2013. University students interested to participate in the event can get more information here.
Online competitions: IBM sponsors mainframe contests across the world. Mainframe contest lets students to participate in a world-class computing platform as well as learn new computing skills and earn great prizes (No prior experience is required).
Many more programs are introduced to students. For more information click here.
New Curriculum for Teaching Faculty
In order to help educators prepare students for future career opportunities, IBM has come up with newer training resources and techniques.
The new curriculum and training resources would be given to the teaching faculty to impart IT security related skills to students. IBM 2012 Tech Trends Report cited that cyber security is a key job growth area and the cyber security workforce is expected to nearly double by 2015.
Training initiative also include 'Mobile Computing', 'Commerce' , 'Big Data & Analytics' ,etc.
The new training initiative is said to be a good trend for other technology companies to follow suit in helping future IT professionals.
