Slideshare, 10/17/2013 (Gerald Smith)

Gerald Smith

Cincinnati Blacks In Technology: 'IT Certifications vs Experience vs Degrees'.  Businesses are investing in IT to help leverage existing resources more thoroughly and find hidden nuggets to put to use. For this reason, there are now more jobs in the IT field than we've seen in quite a few years. It’s that inevitable fork in the road for an IT professional. As a result, a lot of folks are starting to take another look at the IT field as a career choice. What are employers looking for? Certifications? Experience? Degrees? Some combination of the three? Which is more valuable? The answer to these questions depends upon many factors. After all, not all IT certifications or college degrees or job experiences are the same.

These are questions that will be addressed by our guest speaker, Gerald Smith. Gerald is a senior manager with Sogeti and an IT professional with a number of important certifications in program management and agile transformation. He has been a hiring manager looking over resumes and job seekers during his management career at Kroger and Luxottica Retail. Gerald is also a long-time BDPA supporter … once serving on the board as BDPA Cincinnati chapter VP-Strategy & Planning.

Here is the 27-page deck that Gerald used during his presentation:

Cincinnati Blacks In Technology: 'IT Certifications vs Experience vs Degrees' from Wayne Hicks

Cincinnati.com, 10/7/2013 (Janaya Coleman, Babacar Guise, Dan Henderson, Clarence Larcarte)

BDPA Cincinnati Announces New Board Leadership. BDPA Cincinnati chapter, a nonprofit organization made up of racially diverse information technology professionals, today announced new officers and members of its board of directors. BDPA Cincinnati chapter is the 5th largest (out of 46) chapters in the nation. The chapter meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.

Read the full Cincinnati.com article.

Black Enterprise, 10/7/2013 (Khalia Braswell)

Digital Undivided Champions Diversity in Tech With FOCUS 100. Digital Undivided isn’t waiting for permission to change the current tech landscape, which is largely (and unapologetically) young, white and male. In fact, Kathryn Finney, managing director at Digital Undivided, mobilized to flip the script, creating the FOCUS 100 technology conference which brings together tech companies with black women founders/co-founders, angel and venture investors, leading corporations and those invested in the future of tech.

Sponsored by Google, the Global Hack allowed students, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts alike to code their way to the grand prize, which included $500, Nexus 7 tablets and Rasberry Pi systems. Graduate students Khalia Braswell, Aqueasha Martin and France Jackson, as well as Wanda Eugene, PhD, won the hackathon with an app that allows users to identify healthier ingredients for recipes and places them on a leader board where they will be ranked by others who also have the app. The more points a recipe earns, the greater the reward.

Braswell sent out a celebratory message on Twitter after the win: “We won our first hackathon!!”

Read the entire Black Enterprises article.

NOTE:  Khalia Braswell is a BDPA Charlotte chapter member.

Rochester Post-Bulletin, 10/1/2013 (BDPA Southern Minnesota)

High Achievers Honored at BDPA Annual Banquet. It was a night of celebration at the BDPA Southern Minnesota's 14th annual Scholarship and Education Banquet on Sept. 8 at the Rochester International Event Center. The Southern Minnesota chapter of the BDPA awarded thousands of dollars in scholarships and numerous awards. BDPA is a global member-focused organization that positions its members at the forefront of the information technology industry. Through an extensive list of mentors and volunteers, BDPA delivers IT to its members, strategic partners and the community, 'from the classroom to the boardroom'.

Read the rest of the Rochester Post-Bulletin article.