The State of Illinois to Build a Digital-Ready Workforce

CHICAGO and SAN JOSE, Calif., April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The IoT Talent Consortium (IoTTC) and the State of Illinois today announced a partnership to deliver education curricula designed to further Illinois' goal of transforming into a "smart state" by using advanced technologies to deliver services better and more efficiently. This new collaboration will provide an affordable, state-of-the-art option for individuals interested in working in the IT industry, beginning with the growing field of data analytics, and provide a mechanism for employers to ensure a pipeline of talent in Illinois. For more information, visit https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/doit/media/Pages/IoTTC.aspx

Click to Tweet: .@IoT_Talent partners with @IllinoisDoIT to help bridge the talent gap. #datascience #IoT @MSLearning http://goo.gl/PoAW16

New technologies like data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) are empowering governments to create new constituent experiences, enable workforce innovation and transform how they deliver services to those who live, work and play within their communities. The IoT is connecting people, processes, data and things, presenting a huge opportunity to harness and analyze data to improve education, transportation, healthcare, safety and other government services. Yet by 2018, industry analysts predict that there will be a shortage of 1.5 million people with the necessary skills to analyze and use big data, in addition to 1 million job openings for cybersecurity.

Working with the State of Illinois, the IoTTC will provide a prescriptive curriculum for data science skills based on the Microsoft Professional Program for data scientists, followed by cybersecurity specialists and others in the future, to help the state meet its needs.

This partnership brings powerful reskilling and comprehensive technical education in digitization to the table for Illinois learners and businesses:

• Boost economic development for the state of Illinois by providing a 50 percent scholarship toward the data science courses for the first 500 qualified registrants.
• Create opportunities for minimum security inmates by sponsoring 100 courses for the inmate population, with the possibility of additional funding for individuals who want to take their training further.
• The IoTTC is bringing together companies, academia and educators all into an ecosystem to help share best practices and drive organizational transformation through building the talent and skills needed for digitization jobs of the future. The offerings include prescriptive learning curriculum for learners for in-demand IoT jobs. The consortium will soon offer organizational leadership and transformation content workshops to help organizations through their digital transformation journey.
• Graduates from the data science track of the Microsoft Professional Program must successfully master eight core data science skills. Students apply these skills in a final capstone project that requires them to explore and cleanse a dataset, build a machine learning model to analyze the data, and publish it as a web service that will be tested and scored to determine the accuracy of the model. This capstone project acts as tangible proof of the graduate's ability to employ these skills in a real-world data science scenario.

Supporting Quotes:

• Leslie Munger, deputy governor of Illinois: "Illinois' partnership with the IoT Talent Consortium supports our commitment to building and growing a strong digital economy. These courses will help train our workforce to prepare them for jobs of the future and bring jobs back to Illinois."
• Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, president, IoT Talent Consortium, vice president and general manager, Cisco Services: "With the rise of smart states comes a rising expectation of how state services will be delivered. Fortunately, the increase in digitized infrastructure, supported by IoT technology, is providing new ways to deliver services and improve quality of life. However, orchestrating transformative change on a massive scale requires more than just people who know how to install and maintain technology; there's a pressing need for innovation, business savvy, and the ability to analyze and create cross-platform solutions that improve the way we work, live, play and learn. We are thrilled to welcome Illinois into our ecosystem to help share best practices and drive organizational transformation with building talent and skills needed for digitization jobs of the future."
• Hardik Bhatt, secretary-designate Department of Innovation & Technology, chief digital officer: "Our partnership with the IoT Talent Consortium will strengthen efforts to grow Illinois' digital economy. As we expand innovation and technology in our state, it is crucial to also build a workforce to support those initiatives. Training programs, such as this one, will build our pool of technical talent in Illinois."
• Chris Roy, director, IoT Talent Consortium, and senior director of learning services, Microsoft: "We are proud to provide a rigorous curriculum based on the Microsoft Professional Program for data science to learners in the state of Illinois. These skills will help learners in Illinois capture insights from the Internet of Things and use them to turn Illinois into the first smart connected state."

Supporting Resources:

• For more detailed information, please visit:
• https://www.iottalent.org/illinois-datascience
• https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/doit/media/Pages/IoTTC.aspx

Social Media Destinations:

• IoTTC Twitter: @IoT_Talent
• IoTTC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iot-talent-consortium
• State of Illinois LinkedIn: https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/doit/Pages/default.aspx

About the IoT Talent Consortium
The IoT Talent Consortium's vision is to enable the workforce of the future and help realize the value that IoT and digitization have to offer. Our members include Cisco, General Electric, Global Knowledge, Rockwell Automation, Microsoft, MIT Sloan School of Management, Pearson Workforce Readiness, New York Academy of Sciences, the State of Illinois, and workforce management consultant IQNavigator. Discover more at http://www.iottalent.org/ and follow us on Twitter at @IoT_Talent.

About Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT)
On January 25, 2016, Governor Rauner issued Executive Order 16-01 establishing the Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT), a new state agency with responsibility for the information technology functions of agencies under the jurisdiction of the Governor.  DoIT's mission is to empower the State of Illinois through high-value, customer-centric technology by delivering best-in-class innovation to client agencies fostering collaboration and empowering employees to provide better services to residents, businesses, and visitors.  More information can be found on the DoIT website.

Media Contacts:

IoT Talent Consortium Press Relations:                                                                  
Peggy Tierney Galvin                                                     
+1 831-440-2405                                                                                            
[email protected]         

Illinois DoIT Public Information Officer:
Jennifer Schultz
+1-217-557-5811
[email protected]

SOURCE IoT Talent Consortium

Related Links

http://www.iottalent.org