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Please join the Creative Coast Alliance in welcoming Lonnie Emard, Director of Staff Resource Management for Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, on Tuesday May 20 from 11:45 to 1:15. Lunch will be served and the meeting will be held at SEDA in the Board Room.

How do you take technology and apply it to business? What are best practices in workforce development? Can the SE region become a “center of excellence” in these endeavors? What are the new opportunities for collaboration and success throughout the Southeast? How do we offer support to our CIO’s?

“It’s all about the people” and Mr. Emard wants to bring together the SE industries, academics, media, and community leaders both to encourage our local young people to join the business of IT and to support our current leaders in the IT/IS space. The interdisciplinary piece of business IT – design architecture, project management, analysis, and more – is a message that needs to be communicated to our young people and strengthened for our leaders.

According to the Computing Research Association, the number of college freshmen indicating they would major in computer science fell 60 percent from 2000 to 2004, even though demand for employees in IT is soaring. BCBS of SC developed its own training program in 1997 with the help of Midlands Tech and industry experts, producing close to 300 computer programmers since that time. Meanwhile, BCBS has been a strong community participant in summer camps and other innovative partnering approaches to creating a pipeline for the IT field. Additionally, Mr. Emard is an evangelist for large-scale computing, or, high volume transaction processing.

Come hear how each of you can help – and take advantage of the momentum that BCBSSC, USC, and IBM have initiated. Listen to Mr. Emard inspire us to focus on our common needs of people, our dearth of talent, and our ability – if we work together – to bring some national attention to the Southeast!

Please RSVP to jwolf@thecreativecoast.org or call 912-704-0746 by Friday 5/16.