2009 Update: Ottawa High School Technology Program inspires students to pursue careers in tech

IBM, OCE, Macadamian, and Nortel attend June 3, 2009, awards ceremony event to help solve IT skills shortage in Canada

Not enough high school students consider careers in high tech and, currently, there's no end in sight for Canada's IT skills shortage. As worrying, the students who do decide to pursue IT programs at the post-secondary level have a hard time surviving once they're in. Streamlined high school programs just don't deliver the core skills students need, and too many drop out. Yet, with Canada's highest concentation of creative class jobs, the City of Ottawa's economic development organization, OCRI, simply can't afford to let the current IT skills shortage in Canada get worse.

Last fall OCRI brought industry partners/mentors from IBM Canada, Macadamian Technologies, Nortel and Ontario Centres of Excellence to create a pilot Ottawa High School Technology Program to turn kids on to IT careers. And so, in June 2009, OCRI hosted a celebration to honour the kids and the mentors that took part in the very successful first year of what is now being planned as a multi-year program.

The event attracted coverage from CTV, CBC, the Ottawa Business Journal, ITWorldCanada, and other regional and national media. The full list of news stories are here and see a few photos of the event and the program here. Intranets and newsletters from program partner companies also carried the message to thousands of corporate and IT employees.

So, want to help capture a $10.8 billion IT opportunity for Canada? Spread the word about the Ottawa High School Technology Program, especially to your local school board, MPP or MP. Thanks!

(This 2009 Program Update is adapted from an original blog post by Nathan Rudyk, President and CEO of market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency. The original post is here.)