On The Move
First Annual BDPA IT-oLogy Scholarship Winner Announced
Feb 16, 2011
COLUMBIA, SC - February 16, 2011 - Congratulations to Jerron Jamerson, the winner of the first annual BDPA IT-oLogy scholarship. IT-oLogy is the new program of the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management, a 501 (c)(3) organization formed in 2009 as a collaborative effort between IT companies and educational institutions to advance IT talent from the classroom to the boardroom.
Jamerson was selected based on the quality of his application, essay and letters of recommendation. In his essay, Jerron wrote, “Continuous advances in computer science have helped to make business processes more efficient and technology more cost effective for consumers, while computer applications become more and more user-friendly.” Jamerson is a senior at Phillip O’Berry Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina and plans to study Computer Science at South Carolina State University.
The scholarship was offered to student members of the Black Data Processing Association. Applicants had to excel academically, show exceptional leadership potential and make an impact on their communities through service to others. Applicants had to be high school seniors from South Carolina or North Carolina or planning to attend a college in either of these two states.
IT-oLogy is offering this scholarship to continue to encourage more young people to look into Information Technology as a career. “Students who pick IT as their profession have the unique opportunity to pick any industry or type of business to apply their skills and help create the future,” stated Lonnie Emard, Executive Director of IT-oLogy. Jamerson will be awarded a one-time $2,000 scholarship that can be used to pursue an information technology focused degree at an accredited four-year college or university of his choice located in South Carolina or North Carolina.
“We hope to continue to impact on the advancement of our students into science, technology, engineering or math related careers and getting a degree in information technology is one way to get it done, " said BDPA Education and Technology Foundation Executive Director Wayne Hicks.
BDPA Education and Technology is a 501(c)(3) foundation with a mission to locate the funding necessary to support educational and technology programs for BDPA and others across the country. The foundation recognizes that to close the gap of computer and technology literacy, minority youth must participate and compete in today’s digital economy.
USC and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina partnered with IBM in 2009 to form the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management. The Consortium aims to grow IT talent, nurture IT management expertise and cultivate business and organizational relationships. The Consortium was formed in part to encourage young people to learn the skills needed to manage enterprise systems, large-scale computers that process high volume transactions. Since its inception, numerous other corporate and educational supporters have gotten involved and the mission has expanded to include all aspects of computer science and engineering and information technology.
In January 2011, the Consortium moved into a new high-profile location in downtown Columbia and introduced the IT-oLogy program to focus its efforts on its target audience: future IT professionals. The move positions IT-oLogy to be a part of the University of South Carolina’s Innovista campus, designed to stimulate applied business research while providing fertile ground for businesses and job creation.
BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
