The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) is pleased to partner with IT World Canada to host the first National Business Technology Management (BTM) Student Competition between Schools represented by teams of two to five of their top senior year BTM students. With Canada experiencing a giant ICT skills shortage, needing 182,000 people to fill these IT positions by 2019, programs like the BTM (Business Technology Management) are critical to Canada’s future.
The Business Technology Management (BTM) program was introduced in 2009 at the undergraduate level in response to the feedback that new ICT graduates didn’t have the skills needed by businesses. Working together with academic institutions, industry and sector associations, ITAC Talent, a division of ITAC, defined a set of learning outcomes and competency standards required by industry, drawing heavily on relevant international standards for similar programs. Since its development in 2009 BTM has impacted thousands of graduates and is currently offered at 19 post-secondary institutions across Canada and another 23 are in development. BTM students have the highly sought after combination of both business and technical skills to make change happen. The have excellent interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills, a keen understanding of how best to use technology, and the practical skills to put it all together in projects.
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The National Business Technology Management Student Competition will provide students with one week to produce a thorough report in response to the Competition Case Study question, as well as a 10-15-minute video presentation explaining their analysis to the competition judges. All of the material will be made available to the public on the IT World Canada website. The main Competition will take place in February 2017, with a Blog Competition taking place this November and a Twitter chat taking place in January, both to help students to start thinking critically about the competition theme and to prepare themselves for the main Case Study question. Students have the opportunity to win monetary prizes, obtain national exposure, and build valuable skills.
The judges of the Competition are the competition sponsors, who receive a front of the line opportunity to meet and see the innovating thinking of our exceptional future business leaders. The Sponsors will also be selecting the Case Study focus, and can get feedback on critical problems affecting organizations like theirs.
Along with promoting the Competition to IT World Canada’s extensive readership, ITAC will be promoting the competition to its network of corporate executives, IT professionals, leading academics, and BTM students. Stay tuned for future articles and updates about the various stages of the National BTM Competition, including the upcoming Student Blogging Competition in November.
Organizations interested in supporting Canada’s future top talent, boosting their recruitment efforts, and receiving National exposure through ITAC and IT World Canada can contact Jonathan Elias, ITAC Talent Marketing and Outreach Coordinator, at [email protected] about becoming a competition sponsor.
