CompTIA to Match Donations to IT-Ready, Now through Giving Tuesday

Training Program Puts Hardworking Americans into IT Careers

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Nov 02, 2015, 09:30 ET

IT-Ready gives people the knowledge and skills they need for a successful IT career, then connects them to an on-the-job experience opportunity. IT-Ready not only focuses on the "hard" technical skills, but on the "soft" professional skills as well that employers look for in a worker. IT-Ready was created in 2011 by the Creating IT Futures Foundation, CompTIA, and award-winning national IT training provider, Per Scholas.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Nov. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Now through Giving Tuesday (December 1), CompTIA, the IT industry trade association, launched its Holiday Challenge Grant to match donations, up to $25,000, to the IT-Ready career program.

Developed by CompTIA's philanthropic arm, the Creating IT Futures Foundation, IT-Ready takes motivated, unemployed and under-employed adults who lack opportunity and teaches them the skills needed to create IT careers. Military veterans, downsized manufacturing workers, and former retail employees are just a few of the student types in IT-Ready classrooms.

"While 8 million Americans are unemployed, our industry faces a tremendous challenge: there are more than one million open IT jobs in the U.S.," said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO, CompTIA. "Many hardworking, talented adults simply lack the skills needed to fill these jobs."

In just eight weeks of training, students learn both hard technical skills and soft skills and test for the CompTIA A+ certification. Within the classes run by Creating IT Futures, IT-Ready has an 89 percent program graduation rate, 87 percent certification rate and 88 percent job placement rate. Plus unlike graduates of many other workforce development programs, 88 percent of IT-Ready graduates retain their jobs for at least two years.

"Our Foundation has launched more than 1,000 IT careers since 2012, and we're committed to launching another 4,000 by 2018," said Charles Eaton, CEO, Creating IT Futures. "With the creation of the IT-Ready Network this past June, we can scale the training model and fortify IT communities across the country."

Donations can be made at www.ITReadyNetwork.org, and with the Holiday Challenge Grant, contributions will be doubled.

About CompTIA
The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a non-profit trade association serving as the voice of the information technology industry. With approximately 2,000 member companies, 3,000 academic and training partners and more than two million IT certifications issued, CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through educational programs, market research, networking events, professional certifications and public policy advocacy. To learn more, visit CompTIA online, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

About the Creating IT Futures Foundation
As the philanthropic arm of CompTIA, the Creating IT Futures Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity with the mission of helping populations under-represented in the information technology industry and individuals who are lacking in opportunity to prepare for, secure and be successful in IT careers. Learn more at CreatingITFutures.org.

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SOURCE CompTIA