8th Annual Blogging While Brown Conference (June 19-20, 2015)

'BDPAers' are encouraged to mark your calendars with an eye towards attending the 8th Annual Blogging While Brown conference on June 19-20, 2015 in Austin, TX. Austin is a thriving tech-centric city and is where the Blogging While Brown operation is headquartered. Early registration will open soon.

For information about sponsoring Blogging While Brown 2015, email Joi Gamble, director of Brand Partnerships at sponsorships@bloggingwhilebrown.com.

Top Giving Foundations: Texas

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Communities Foundation of Texas are the top three giving foundations in California as determined by the Grantsmanship Center. [SOURCE]

There are 37 other top giving foundations listed. All of the listed foundations have a staff, issue RFPs, or otherwise indicate an interest in receiving proposals.

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF) is willing to work with our BDPA Austin chapter, BDPA Dallas chapter or BDPA Houston chapter leaders if they want to pursue grant proposals to any or all of these 40 funding sources!

Dell to Give $5 Million for UT Social Innovation Competition

Dell Inc. is putting their money where their mouth is. The company gave $5 million to the University of Texas to expand a competition that encourages college students worldwide to come up with creative solutions to social problems.

The company already is the title sponsor for the Dell Social Innovation Competition. The competition is operated by UT's RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, which is part of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

The competition focuses on how technology can address problems such as poverty, health issues and the environment. This year, there were nearly 1,500 applications from 85 countries.

In addition to the money — Dell's largest cash donation to UT — Dell executives have mentored students in the program.

"The expansion of the program that Dell's gift allows will really take this program to scale, reaching an estimated 20,000 students over the next five years, encouraging them not to just make their communities and the world a better place, but with business plans to take those dreams and turn it into reality," said Robert Hutchings, dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Donations like this one from Dell Inc. make me sorry that BDPA no longer has an active chapter in Austin, Texas. Of course, it also make me want to look again at submitting a grant proposal to the Dell Foundation!

This Week in BDPA (Oct 19-25)

Our foundation seeks to support BDPA programs and services. As such, it is important that our blog readers know about the plethora of BDPA activity all around the country. Here is a weekly preview of upcoming events gathered from the BDPA CollectiveX Calendar and elsewhere:

• Oct 20: New York - Networking Event, 'Taste of Technology Small Business Series'
• Oct 21: Austin - Program Meeting, 'Congressional Black Caucus Recap'
• Oct 22: Atlanta - Program Meeting, 'Project Management'
• Oct 22: Los Angeles - Program Meeting, 'Articulating Your Skills and Job Search in the 21st Century'
• Oct 23: Greater Tampa Bay - Program Meeting, 'Regulatory Compliance'
• Oct 23: New Jersey - Program Meeting, 'How to Effectively Tighten Your Belt Straps During Difficult Times'
• Oct 23: New York - Program Meeting, 'The Role of IT in Voting Machines'
• Oct 23: Washington DC - Program Meeting, 'Town Hall Meeting'

We encourage all BDPA leaders to take advantage of the BDPA CollectiveX Groupsite Calendar to post your upcoming events! Please let us know of other BDPA events that we may have missed. Most importantly, let us know if you plan to attend any BDPA events this week.

If you like what you are seeing on this blog ... please consider making an online donation to the BDPA Foundation so that we can continue to fund these events in the future.

Message from Austin Chapter President

BDPA Austin is the 24th largest chapter in the nation. The chapter, founded in November 2004, is at a crossroads. The situation is discussed in detail by chapter president Lorna Stewart-Booker in her letter to members and other stakeholders. I encourage you to reach out to Lorna to express your support once you read her message below:

---

BDPA has become the premier information technology organization committed to promoting technology literacy. As an all-volunteer organization, our members have developed and maintained first-rate programs and activities.
BDPA is committed to providing IT professionals with the latest technological information and opportunities for professional growth and advancement. Ultimately, you control your professional destiny. BDPA can help you advance your career in the IT profession. BDPA gives professionals, executives, entrepreneurs and students an IT career pathway from the classroom to the boardroom. Through education, mentoring, business networking and services, BDPA promotes innovation, technical skills, business savvy and personal growth.
Join BDPA Austin and thousands in BDPA who are making a difference for themselves and for others.

On Tuesday, June 24, 2008 BDPA Austin Chapter Board Members held a conference call to discuss the "State of the Chapter". We considered the idea of discontinuing the Chapter due to low meeting attendance and inactivity from our members.
Instead, we decided to focus on the future – our Youth. We decided to continue building momentum in our High School Computer Competition (HSCC) training program. For the past three
years, we have successfully fielded teams to compete nationally for scholarships as well as instill the gift of computer programming into these student's lives.

We invite you to attend our July Town Hall program meeting on July 15, 2008 @ 6:30 at Mitchie's (6406 N Interstate 35 Ste. 2800 Austin, Texas) to discuss ideas on membership, recruiting, fund raising, sponsorship mentoring and HSCC. Please attend our Town Hall meeting, to discuss our new direction.

For more information call (512) 326-6350.

Sincerely,
Lorna Stewart-Booker, President
BDPA Austin Chapter
P.O. Box 270255
Austin TX 78727

---

Take a moment to POST A COMMENT below if you have any thoughts you want to share with BDPA Austin chapter leadership.

This Week in BDPA (July 13-19)

Our foundation seeks to support BDPA programs and services. As such, it is important that our blog readers know about the plethora of BDPA activity all around the country. Here is a weekly preview of upcoming events gathered from the BDPA CollectiveX Calendar and elsewhere:

• Jul 15: Charlotte - Program Meeting, 'Virtualization'
• Jul 15: Austin - Program Meeting, 'Town Hall Meeting'
• Jul 15: Memphis - Program Meeting, 'Meet the National BDPA President'
• Jul 16: New York - Program Meeting, 'Where Do I Go From Here? Tools for Career Transition'
• Jul 16: Los Angeles - Program Meeting, 'HSCC Team Reception and Scholarship Awards'
• Jul 16: Philadelphia - Program Meeting, 'Making Business Sense of Social Media'
• Jul 17: Detroit - Workshop, 'Career Connect w/ Deloitte'
• Jul 17: Northern Delaware - Program Meeting, 'Social Networking & Membership Drive'
• Jul 18: Chicago - Program Meeting, 'State of the Chapter'

We encourage all BDPA leaders to take advantage of the BDPA CollectiveX Groupsite Calendar to post your upcoming events! Please let us know of other BDPA events that we may have missed. Most importantly, let us know if you plan to attend any BDPA events this week.

If you like what you are seeing on this blog ... please consider making an online donation to the BDPA Foundation so that we can continue to fund these events in the future.

10th Annual Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR-Austin)

Web teams from more than two dozen Austin, Texas, companies converged for a voluntary day of competition October 13th to build new Web sites or improve existing ones for non-profit organizations whose clientele includes those with disabilities. The 10th Annual Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR-Austin) is part of a nationwide initiative to make the Internet accessible for those with disabilities as a tool for gaining knowledge.

Hat tip to Lorna Stewart-Booker (BDPA Austin chapter president) for letting us know how her chapter's team did in the competition. She wrote,

"WOW!!! We Won! We Won! Can you tell we're excited! BDPA Austin chapter's new website has won First Place in the Air-Austin 2007 Stock Car Division. This is exciting for the BDPA family and for the Vesper Web Design team that designed our website. This win means that BDPA is eligible for the state competition scheduled for a later date.

Knowbility, who sponsored the Air-Austin event, supports the independence of children and adults with disabilities by promoting the use and improving the availability of accessible information technology. Check out their website for more information."

Share some love in the comments section for Lorna and the others from BDPA Austin chapter!

Women in Technology (Austin)

We are very proud of the growth of our BDPA chapter in Central Texas. BDPA Austin chapter began the year as the 33rd largest chapter in the country. We are moving into the 4th quarter of the year ... and the chapter has increased their membership by 100% and moved up to become the 20th largest chapter in the country. The growth of this chapter is directly related to the meaningful programs and services provided for their members.

One such service is the monthly program meeting. BDPA Austin chapter will focus on Women in Technology at their October 16th program meeting. All IT professionals in central Texas are invited to share their concerns, ideas, thoughts and questions with some powerful women in our industry. The panel discussion with women from different levels of management who will discuss what it means for women to be in technology.

Here are the logistics for the meeting:

Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Mitchie’s Fine Art and Gallery
Lincoln Village Shopping Center located at IH 35 and Hwy 290

This is a great topic ... and particularly timely for BDPA as our national presidents from 2006 thru 2011 are powerful sisters (Gina Billings, Denise Holland and Yvette Graham) and our current president in Austin is a sister entrepreneur (Lorna Stewart-Booker).

Any Austin area readers out there?

America's Techiest Cities

Hat-Tip to BDPA Philadelphia for pointing us to this ComputerWorld article. I imagine that it is easy to guess that the highest concentration of IT professionals in the U.S. is in Silicon Valley. But naming the No 2 spot isn't as easy, and the answer might surprise you.

The runner-up isn't a well-known tech center like Boston or Seattle; it's the Washington DC metro area.

"It kind of belies some of the perceptions of where the hiring is, where people work in this field," said John Challenger, president of Chicago-based outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. "[Many typically] think that most people in IT work in Silicon Valley, and they might add in Washington state, Seattle and maybe Austin," he said.

Data for 2006 from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey (ACS), released just last month, reveal what could be called a metropolitan area's "TQ" (technology quotient) -- how "techie" a region's overall workforce is, based on the number of self-reported computer professionals. And some of the results turn stereotypes upside down. (See the interactive national map, or query the database for a specific metro area.)

Roughly 6% of the D.C. metro area workforce is made up of "computer specialists," compared with 8.3% in Silicon Valley. The third-highest concentration of IT workers is in Raleigh/Cary, N.C., at 5.3% of the workforce, followed closely by Boulder, Colo., and Huntsville, Ala., each at 5.2%. The remainder of the top 10 technology worker areas is rounded out, in order, by Bloomington/Normal, Ill.; Trenton-Ewing, N.J.; Austin-Round Rock, Texas; Manchester-Nashua, N.H.; and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.

The Census Bureau data also shows that IT worker pay tends to reflect the percentage of techies in the workforce. The annual average salary for computer and information systems managers in Silicon Valley as of May 2006 was $139,460, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the D.C. metro area, that figure was $122,950. Around Raleigh, N.C., it was $102,880.



Click here for the full article

Did you see where your city ranks? You can use these figures to determine a membership goal in your chapter city. For example, there are 22, 000 IT workers in Cincinnati. Doesn't that mean that Cincinnati should have at least 2,200 African American IT workers to approach about membership?

Oracle Overview and Introduction (Austin, TX)

BDPA is a global member-focused technology organization that delivers programs and services for the professional well-being of its stakeholders. As such, we feel it is important for our members to have a clear understanding of Oracle. We invite those of you in central Texas to join us on Tuesday, September 18th to hear our presenter, Melvin Jackson, provide an 'Overview and Introduction to Oracle'.

Melvin is an IT professional with several years experience in toolset encompassing Powerbuilder, Visual Basic, Java, Documentation, Oracle, Sysbase, and Coldfusion and a host of other programmatic utilities sources. It is worth noting that Melvin was also instrumental in tutoring the high school students from Austin, TX as they prepared for national computer competition held last month in Washington DC.

The logistics for this Austin, TX program meeting are as follows:

• Location: Mitchie's Fine Black Art; 6406 N IH 35
• Date: Tuesday, September 18
• Time: 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm

Refreshments will be provided and there will be IT recruiters in attendance. You are encouraged to bring business cards, resumes and a friend. The program meeting is open to the public. It is free of charge. You can RSVP for this meeting by sending email to BDPA Austin chapter

Do we have any BETF-Blog readers from Texas reading this post?