Last night, the Ottawa High School Technology Program honoured its first crop of 48 students at an awards ceremony in Kanata.
The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation initiative aims to get students interested in IT careers before heading off the post-secondary. The project was launched in response to coming shortage of IT skills which the Conference Board of Canada has said could cost the Canadian economy $10 billion over the next two to four years.
The idea is to inspire students to pursue IT careers before their senior year courses are locked in, and through hands-on learning with industry professionals, provide the skills they need so they can thrive in college and university technology courses instead of hitting a wall for lack of these skills,” says Claude Haw, President and CEO, OCRI.
We must make this not a city or provincial, but a national priority for the good of the Canadian economy
The program began September 2008 with grade 11 students from All Saints High School and grade 10 students from Earl of March High School.
More information on the initiative is available at the Ottawa High School Technology Program web site.
The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is one of Canada's most successful partnership organizations. We are the rallying point for... [more]
Robert Janelle
Robert Janelle is a freelance technology journalist living in the National Capital Region. He's spent time covering the Ottawa start-up scene as a columnist and feature writer with his work in National Capital Scan, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun, Kingston Whig-Standard and The Escapist. He also suffers from a mild addiction to video games.
