By Alexandra Sukin ’15, Co Editor-in-Chief

This year Country Day students had a strong presence at the INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati, a program that, according to their mission statement, attempts to “create a renowned, thriving and sustainable pool of IT talent in the Greater Cincinnati Region.” The program, run by Executive Director Doug Arthur, has dozens of local sponsors like GE, P&G, Cintas and Toyota who are looking for young people to fill their IT demands right here in Cincinnati. INTERalliance offers IT Career Camps, the annual TechOlympics Expo, the INTERalliance Leadership Council, and the technology-consulting firm SSK (Super-Smart-Kids).

This year juniors Connor Wiley, Matt McFarland, Adam Baker, Alex Warner, Royal Thurman, Elizabeth Grace and I attended the IT Career Camps at Miami University, University of Cincinnati, and Northern Kentucky University. The one-week program is designed to highlight the problem solving side of IT, and how it can be applied to technology problems facing corporations. During the week 20 students (each sponsored by a different corporation) visited five different companies where they competed in technology based challenges, and were judged on their solutions to the problems. Throughout the week, campers worked in groups on a TOBE (Technology Optimized Business Enterprise), which they presented on the last day of camp to a group of judges who are business leaders from different corporations.

It was apparent that the corporations were impressed with Country Day students. In addition to my team and Alex Warner’s team winning the TOBE, Matt McFarland was awarded the Toyota Excellence Award and Connor Wiley’s team won the corporate challenges of the week. Matt and I were selected for the INTERalliance Leadership Council, and will be attending a retreat in Indiana with the ILC this weekend.