Cardinal Solutions, a national IT solutions provider with headquarters in Cincinnati, signed an agreement with the
University of Cincinnati’s Department of Information Technology this fall that aims to provide an exchange of ideas and experiences to enrich both organizations.
“As part of the
IT2019 strategic plan for the Department of Information Technology at UC, we recognized the importance of establishing deep partnerships with IT industry leaders,” says associate professor Hazem Said. “We took several steps to define and establish such partnerships. The agreement we signed with Cardinal Solutions, and with
Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions before that, is a manifestation of this effort.”
Cardinal Solutions will leverage its extensive experience in technology solutions including mobile application development, user experience and custom application development to help bring real-world experience to the students. The goal is to help affect curriculum in a manner to drive productivity of students when they graduate and enter the workforce.
“Students will now have multiple opportunities to know and interact with IT professionals in our corporate partners inside and outside the classrooms,” Said says. “Faculty in the IT program will also benefit from this partnership through opportunities to work with corporate teams and to conduct research related to problems faced by the industry.”
The partnership will help Cardinal Solutions interact with the talented pool of students. As the IT industry job landscape continues to be more and more competitive, Cardinal will get to know students from a recruiting perspective and ensure the students are prepared to enter the job force.
Although the partnership is just getting started, within the first few weeks, Cardinal professionals began to advise on senior design projects. Additionally, UC students and faculty are gaining exposure to the methodology and user interface design techniques at which Cardinal excels.
“We are hoping that the partnership will reduce Cardinal’s time and cost to hire,” Said says. “Furthermore, we are hoping that the partnership will enable UC to increase quantity and quality of its incoming IT students and its graduating IT class.
“To meet the challenges in the Information Technology sector, both academia and industry need to think differently and take new initiatives to change the status quo to increase the quantity and quality of graduates and to ensure continued professional development for the current workforce. The partnership model that we started at UC is just one step.”
By Mike Sarason
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