Employee Spotlight: Why I believe in i.c.stars

Note from the editor: This story was written by Adam Luck and originally appeared on his blog, adamjluck.com. Since getting involved with i.c.stars, we are thrilled to have brought one of their graduates on board full-time! Read more about his story below.

After finishing grad school in 2015, I had a strong urge to volunteer. I wanted to make an impact. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite know how to devote my time. Should I go to a soup kitchen? Meals on wheels? I reached out to Jen Bowden (Director of Community Investment at IGS) and she gave me some wonderful advice. She told me to find a problem that I was passionate about fixing. The more and more I thought about it, I was frustrated by the unnecessary barrier that was preventing talented individuals from entering the IT workforce. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to invest time and money into receiving a formal education at Ohio University. My formal education served as a great way to demonstrate my work ethic and desire to learn. It ultimately got my foot in the door of a great company and helped kick-start my career. In my mind, there had to be a way to help less fortunate individuals demonstrate those same capabilities while gaining some practical experience. After all, I learned more about business working at our family-owned shoe store in High School than I did receiving a Minor in Business Administration. Rather than sit back and complain, I decided to try and fix the problem from the inside. I started teaching classes at Franklin University. As much as I loved helping the students, it wasn’t enough. I wanted to do more to remove the barrier preventing talented individuals from entering the IT workforce.

Getting connected to i.c.stars

Fast forward a few months and the aforementioned Director of Community Investment at IGS introduced me to Ryan Frederick. Ryan spoke to us about a program that had started in Chicago called i.c.stars. The program identifies, trains and jump-starts technology careers for low-income young adults who, although lacking access to education and employment, demonstrate extraordinary potential for success in the business world and for impact in their communities. Candidates that enroll in the i.c.stars immerse themselves in the program. They go through a 4 month training cycle and spend 60+ hours a week working on a real project for organizations. The numbers from the original office in Chicago speak for themselves…

• 300+ total alumni
• 95% initial placement rate
• $9,915 average annual earnings before the program
• $57,240 average annual earnings 30 months after program completion

A growing partnership between i.c.stars and IGS

Honestly, even after seeing those statistics, I was skeptical. I didn’t think that i.c.stars could prepare individuals with little-to-no technical experience for a career as a Business Analyst, Project Manager, QA Analyst or Developer in 4 short months while also managing to deliver a working product. The team at IGS decided to serve as the first project sponsor for i.c.stars Columbus. We saw a partnership with i.c.stars as an opportunity to give back to our community and change lives for the better. The i.c.stars group was split into several teams that worked to build IGS a dashboard to display information about our EDI transactions. I can definitively say after serving as the organization’s first project sponsor that I had no reason to be skeptical. I am still amazed by the growth that I witnessed during the initial 4 month program.

Want to get involved?

If you’re interested in learning more about i.c.stars, contact me and I will introduce you to some of their awesome team members. In fact, along with Josh Miller (Training Manager at i.c.stars), I’m establishing a Mentorship Committee at i.c.stars in an effort to help recruit candidates around Columbus to help mentor future classes. We’re looking for folks with experience in Software Development, Database Administration, Business Intelligence, Engineering, Project Management, Leadership, Information Security, IT Infrastructure, QA Testing or Technical Support. The time commitment to mentor could be as much or as little as someone is willing to contribute. If you’re interested in joining the committee and helping recruit mentors for the organization, please let me know. Also, click here if you’re able to spend some time serving as a mentor.

CLICK HERE TO SEE CURRENT CAREER OPPORTUNITIES WITH IGS