Cincinnati State Board of Trustees, 9/20/2016 (Frank Hill)

Frank Hill

Frank Hill was recognized for his outstanding accomplishments as an adjunct instructor (he teaches computer applications) and his volunteer work with the Cincinnati Chapter of Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA). One of BDPA’s priorities is helping minority high school students prepare for college and STEM careers.

“When I see these high school kids, I see such great potential,” Hill said. “I see that for Cincinnati State students, too.”

Cincinnati.com, 6/29/2015 (Tyra Oldham)

Dr. Tyra Oldham

Cincinnati Blacks in Technology: 'Why is the Smart Grid So Important?' So, do you want to collaborate with the like-minded technology professionals of color in our city? Please be our guest for the Cincinnati Blacks in Technology event at Brown Mackie College (1011 Glendale Milford Road; Cincinnati OH 45215) on Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 6:00pm. Our discussion will answer the question, 'Why is the Smart Grid So Important?'.

Dr. Tyra Oldham, CEO of LANDsds, a management and consulting company providing sustainability and development, will provide an overview of smart grid and its importance to technology professionals. Smart technologies and smart providers and users are what make this unfolding system relevant and important. Dr. Oldham’s presentation is informative and interactive. Smart grid is not only relevant to our energy, but necessary for users to understand the importance on how we move forward considering people, infrastructure, facilities, business, systems, homes, technology and play. Learn about smart grid, smart grid technology, companies engaged in smart grid, careers

Click here to read the full Cincinnati.com article.

My CState Daily News, 4/16/2015 (Frank Hill)

Frank Hill

Cincinnati State Honored at BDPA Event. Cincinnati State was recognized as the Corporate Sponsor of the Year by the Cincinnati Chapter of the BDPA.  During an awards luncheon last week, the organization also recognized the work of Instructor Frank Hill (pictured above) from the Business Technologies Division and read a proclamation from Ohio Gov. John Kasich recognizing the College’s work in the field.

BDPA was originally known as Black Data Processing Associates. It is an international organization with a diverse membership of professionals and students in the fields of information technology, computer science and related STEM fields. Members are actively engaged in serving the community through outreach and charting the future of the IT industry.

Read the rest of the My CState Daily News article.

Cincinnati.com, 1/28/2014 (Jessica Waddell)

Jessica Waddell

BDPA Cincinnati Announces New Leadership - Jessica Waddell - BDPA Cincinnati chapter, a nonprofit organization made up of racially diverse information technology professionals, announced a new member of its executive team. Jessica Waddell was named the Vice President of Finance. Jessica is a financial analyst at GE Aviation. She handles financial planning, cash forecasting, billing and project management in her current position. She has been working for almost nine years at GE Aviation, one of the largest corporations in Cincinnati. Jessica was vice president of the National Black MBA Association chapter on the campus of Ohio State University, where she earned her degree in Finance.

Read the rest of this Cincinnati.com article.

Cincinnati.com, 12/6/2014 (Clifford Bailey)

Clifford Bailey

Prominent Business Leader to Discuss 'Productivity in the Workplace' with BDPA. BDPA, the premier organization for African American professionals in the information technology industry, will host Clifford Bailey on Wednesday, December 17 @ 6:00pm at the campus of Brown Mackie College (1011 Glendale Milford Road; Cincinnati 45215). He will focus on 'Productivity in the Workplace'. Our guest speaker has a wealth of business success, inspiring thought leadership and passion for teaching that make him a sought after keynote speaker and educator for the past decade.

Read the full Cincinnati.com story.

Cincinnati.com, 12/6/2014 (Norman Phillips)

Norman Phillips

BDPA Cincinnati Announces New Leadership - Norman Phillips. BDPA Cincinnati chapter, a nonprofit organization made up of racially diverse information technology professionals, announced a new member of its executive team. Norman Phillips was named the Vice President of Strategy & Planning (VPSP). Norman is an IT architect and manager of business transformation for over 30 years at Procter & Gamble (P&G). P&G is the largest corporation in Cincinnati. Norman is a YMCA Black Achiever as well as a volunteer with the youth ministries at Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist. Norman received his computer sciences degree from Southern University.

Read the full Cincinnati.com story.

Cincinnati Herald, 9/4/2014 (Hasani Harrigan)

Hasani Harrigan and Frank Hill

Reaching for the Stars honors 2015 Leaders for the Future. The Reaching for the Stars Program takes great pride in identifying, honoring, and creating awareness of young, emerging leaders in the African American community destined to be future leaders of our City. These exceptional leaders epitomize excellence in character, service, leadership, and achievements. The 2015 Leaders for the Future were honored in June in a very special ceremony at the University of Cincinnati’s African American Cultural and Resource Center.

Hasani Harrigan, Seven Hills High School, junior. Hasani is an honor student and a three-sport athlete. He received the Coaches Award for Golf, was the team MVP in baseball, and he played on the basketball team. He was awarded Best Overall Science Portfolio by the Emerging Ethnic Engineers, Outstanding Technical Achievement recognition by the BDPA Cincinnati.

Read the rest of the Cincinnati Herald article.

Cincinnati.com, 6/10/2014 (Patrick Nelson)

BDPA Announces New Board Leadership. BDPA Cincinnati chapter, a nonprofit organization made up of racially diverse information technology professionals, today announced a new member of its board of directors. Patrick Nelson is appointed to serve as the director of the chapter’s benefits department.

BDPA Cincinnati is the 2nd largest (out of 46) chapters in the nation. The Benefits Department procures discounts and other benefits for BDPA Cincinnati chapter members. These benefits fall into the following categories: computer hardware, magazine subscriptions, software, and training. All relevant member benefits are provided to each of the members, and available on the chapter website.

Read rest of this Cincinnati.com article.

Cincinnati.com, 1/6/2014 (Hadiya Harrigan)

BDPA Student Wins National Women Technology Award.  Hadiya Harrigan of Lebanon has been selected as one of 35 high school students in the United States to receive the Aspirations in Computing award.  The National Center for Women and Information Technology selected Harrigan from a diverse applicant pool of more than 2,300 students. She has been very active in the BDPA Cincinnati chapter for several years. She participated for the past three years in the local chapter's High School Computer Camp and  national high school computer competitions.  Last year, she received a summer internship co-sponsored by BDPA Cincinnati and BDPA the Luxottica Group.

Read the rest of the article here.

Related articles

• Cincinnati.com, 7/29/2013 (Hadiya Harrigan)
• Cincinnati.com, 6/30/2013 (Hadiya Harrigan, Brian Pulliam)

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.

Cincinnati.com, 9/11/2013 (Clarence Larcarte)

L-R: Hassani Harrigan, Hadiya Harrigan, Brian Pulliam and Kiese Wamba

BDPA Cincinnati students place 5th in the National High School Computer Competition (HSCC) Championship. The HSCC championships were held during the annual BDPA Technology Conference last month in Washington, D.C. This placement comes after placing 7th in 2012.

BDPA Cincinnati chapter president, Clarence Larcarte (Procter & Gamble), had this to say on the team’s success: “This is the culmination of months of hard work by the students and their instructors. I’m proud that Cincinnati is represented by such brilliant young minds and I know that these students have very bright futures ahead of them.”

Read the full Cincinnati.com article.

Cincinnati.com, 7/29/2013 (Hadiya Harrigan)

Hadiya Harrgan

BDPA Partners with Luxottica to Sponsor a High School Student Internship. BDPA Cincinnati announced today that it will partner with the Luxottica group in Mason, OH to provide a high school student with the opportunity to gain experience in a local IT Department. Luxottica has been involved with BDPA Cincinnati for the past several years as a corporate sponsor. This effort will continue to build a strong partnership between these two groups.

Alicia Tidwell, diversity leader for Luxottica Group says, “We view the partnership as a viable resource to source top talent. Our goal is to build a pipeline with BDPA to begin bringing in associates to fill key rolls within our organization.”

Hadiya Harrigan, senior at Seven Hills High School, started her summer internship last week. She will work throughout the summer to implement 300 computers across the school network at Withrow High School. She will be installing software, providing training, and assisting the administration with pre and post conversion support. This summer internship will allow Hadiya to develop her personal and technical skills on an important project for this school and our community.

Read the full Cincinnati.com article.

Cincinnati.com, 6/30/2013 (Hadiya Harrigan, Brian Pulliam)

Hadiya Harrigan

Brian Pulliam

'Reaching for Stars' Leaders Honored. The ninth annual Images of Excellence Corporation’s Reaching for the Stars program Thursday honored 10 high school students and recent graduates during a ceremony at Cincinnati State College. Sallie Elliott, director of the Images of Excellence Corporation, said the ceremony was designed to identify, salute and create awareness of young leaders in Cincinnati's Black community.

“The Awards create a linkage for these young aspirants with established and accomplished leaders in their professions and in the community,” Elliott said. “We want to encourage them to come back to Cincinnati after their educational careers are over and help make Cincinnati great.”

BDPA Cincinnati student members Hadiya Harrigan and Brian Pulliam were both honored with this prestigious award. Read the full article here.

Business Courier, 10/12/2012 (BDPA Cincinnati)

BDPA Cincinnati Chapter Annual Education & Scholarship Banquet. BDPA Cincinnati Chapter is pleased to announce that Vincent Brown, founding partner of Global Novations, will be the keynote speaker for its 17th Annual Education & Scholarship Banquet. Mr. Brown has over thirty years of consulting experience in the areas of diversity and inclusion, team-building, leadership development, strategic planning and executive coaching. He also leads the innovation, intellectual property and new product development components for the company. In addition, he co-authored a book, The Phoenix Principles: Leveraging Inclusion the Transform Your Company and several others. Brown will address the theme ‘Transformation of the IT Professional’.

Read the full Business Courier calendar listing.

ConnXus Blog, 7/9/2012 (BDPA Cincinnati, Wayne Hicks)

BDPA Advances IT From Classroom to Boardroom. BDPA was formed in the mid-1970s to address a challenge that lingers today: a lack of African-American representation in the IT industry.

Since the first chapter was launched in Philadelphia, BDPA has become a sophisticated national organization. The nonprofit aim is to identify and advance African American leaders in IT.

“We provide programs, scholarships and services to help our communities win the future,” Wayne Hicks, BDPA Education and Technology Foundation executive director, tells us.

Read the rest of this ConnXus Blog post.

Cincinnati.com, 3/2/2012 (Clarence Larcarte, Kevin Murray)

CinBell CIO Kevin Murray to Share Road To Success With BDPA Cincinnati. Do you remember when there were payphones on every street corner? Do you remember when you worried about the cost of each individual toll- or long-distance call? Do you remember when only cable companies provided you with television service or Internet connections at home? We live in a brave new world now ... and the evolution of service from Cincinnati Bell impacts on all of us in a variety of ways.

BDPA Cincinnati chapter, a nonprofit organization made up of racially diverse information technology professionals who advance the careers of African Americans from the classroom to the boardroom, wants to assist the community with programs that prepare you and your family to 'win the future'.

Read the rest of the Cincinnati.com article.

BDPA Cincinnati Computer Camp (2012)

BDPA Cincinnati Computer Camp (2012)

View more documents from Wayne Hicks

Mason Pulse-Journal, 9/11/2011 (BDPA Cincinnati)

Margo Springs "Keynote Speaker" for Sixteenth Annual BDPA Awards Banquet. BDPA Cincinnati announced that Margo Springs, Chief Information Officer, City of Cincinnati, is keynote speaker for this year's banquet, addressing the theme “Ignite, Inspire, & Empower – The GPS of Future Technologists”.

Read the rest of the Mason Pulse-Journal article.

Cincinnati.com, 8/10/2011 (BDPA Cincinnati)

Cincinnati HSCC team with their coach Deborah Jackson

BDPA Cincinnati Takes Culturally Diverse Students to National High School Computer Competition Championship in Chicago. Stock market gyrations, debt ceiling debates and the worries over the upcoming Cincinnati Bengals football season have dominated local headlines in recent weeks. Few in our city were focused on the remarkable achievements of Cincinnati-area high school students in a national computer programming competition, or appreciate the training it takes to excel in this intellectual effort.

So the 13th-place finish of Cincinnati's team (out of 45 BDPA chapters) in the National High School Computer Competition (HSCC) Championship sponsored by BDPA didn't draw a lot of attention. But the four team members went through a comprehensive training program with the local BDPA chapter before they pitted their skills against other teams at the national BDPA technology conference in Chicago.

Read the rest of the Cincinnati.com article.