The INTERalliance is a collaborative effort of Greater Cincinnati Regional businesses and educators, creating an environment that gives local young IT talent a compelling reason to stay in southwest Ohio both for college and their careers.

The Vision: Establish the Greater Cincinnati Region as a model of cooperation between business and educators -- working together to identify, nurture, train, employ, and retain the area's best IT talent.

Mission Statement: To create a renowned, thriving and sustainable pool of IT talent in the Greater Cincinnati Region that not only fulfills local demand, but also is strong enough to actually attract new employers to the area.

Program Description: Opportunities provided by members of the INTERalliance begin in high school and continue through undergraduate and graduate school. High school faculty members identify and nominate the best and brightest of the students showing an interest in and talent for Information Technology to participate in highly focused coaching and job opportunities, featuring mentoring, and unique global and local employment opportunities. The goal is, in essence, to groom these students for consideration for the most attractive IT jobs in the Greater Cincinnati market.

Member organizations include high schools, universities, and prospective employers who are willing to create internship and co-op work opportunities for students moving through the program. Local IT service providers offer a unique brand of mentoring and consulting exposure to the students as they take advantage of multiple years of opportunities for involvement. The INTERalliance provides governance and administration of a 3-tiered program that can offer students pre-employment opportunities over a period of up to seven years: (1) an intensive one-week summer IT Careers Camp for select incoming 11th graders, (2) paid IT summer internships for graduating high school juniors and seniors, and (3) work co-ops - both international and local -- during undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Pilot Rollout Plans: 2006 Summer IT Careers Camp - 2 one-week sessions, July 10-14 and July 31-August 4, 2006 -- 20 students each, nominated by faculty from six leading Cincinnati college-prep high schools. Participants will participate in daylong programming each day for five days on University of Cincinnati's Clifton campus. Students will work in UC's computer labs, learning state-of-the-art web animation techniques, while they compete on teams, creating innovative websites for a local charity. Each day, a senior IT executive from one of Cincinnati's leading employers will provide a lunchtime keynote address and workshop about IT career opportunities in the Greater Cincinnati area. Three mornings will include field trips to behind-the-scene tours of some of the area's most innovative, exciting IT environments, where the students will get to interview the IT professionals and learn about the diverse IT employment opportunities available in the Greater Cincinnati area.

Also underway are plans for international IT co-ops for graduate students, local co-ops for undergrads, and paid summer internships for high school students.

Participating Pilot High Schools: Walnut Hills High School, St. Xavier High School, St. Ursula Academy, Indian Hill High School, Sycamore High School, Cincinnati Country Day School

INTERalliance Advisory Board: Tony Saldanha, Director, P&G/Gillette; Robert Scott, VP, P&G; Dilip Lillaney, Associate Director, P&G, Vivek Choudhury, Chair, IS Dept, U.C. College of Business; Geoff Smith, former Deputy CIO, P&G; Bob Coy, President, CincyTechUSA; Gene Wells, Vice President, Atos Origin; Jill Henry, Senior Director, Cintas Corporation; Waheed Zaman, Executive VP/CIO, Chiquita Brands, Julie Elberfeld, VP, Fifth Third Bank.

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