This one caught my eye since it’s about students, education, innovation, and addressing the skills gap. Each ICT worker contributes about $120,000 to the Canadian Economy and with the world economic challenges, the skill value of IT professionals is more pronounced then ever. Well David O’leary is at the forefront of making a substantive difference to all of the areas noted above.

My last extended chat with Dave O’leary happened at the March 2008 National Council of IT Deans Summit hosted by Microsoft Canada, where academic leaders from across the country shared solutions to increase technology enrollments, address the skills shortage, foster passion and industry-leading competencies in students, and innovate. I was invited to keynote and advise, and will do this again in Feb 5/6 of 2009 at the National Council of IT Deans Summit. Dave, led the summit as both incoming Chair of the National Council of IT Deans and also as a Dean at Northwest College. Dave also now holds the position as CIO at the college.

Dave spoke at the summit about an innovative consortium of colleges and universities launching a new collaborative academic program which features the use of Microsoft technologies and solutions. This is often not widely known but Microsoft has extensive and far reaching programs to support the academic community through academic forums, research and software, gaming tools and curriculum, student ambassador/partner programs, faculty connections, sponsorships, awards, events such as TechDays/EnergizeIT, Webcasts (Ignite Your Career, Academic), and much more.

Late in 2008, Northwest Science & Innovation sponsored an innovation award, and David O’leary was spotlighted by a nomination for his leadership.

As noted in the nomination, Dave “has been instrumental in the development of a new collaborative Information Technology Program which not only addresses the skills shortages in the IT field both locally and nationally, but also which uses modern communications technology to break down geographic and other barriers to students, and allows students to train, work and stay in their communities.”

I wanted to congratulate Dave on this special honour! Well Done!

And a special thank you to Dave for his continuing commitment to excellence and to Microsoft Canada (and the award-winning, world top-ranked advisor, evangelist teams you see in the MS blogs) for providing the enabling support to make real change happen.

Cheers,
Stephen