IT Group Seeing Growth, Getting Attention Article

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IT group seeing growth, getting attention

The group can be especially helpful to IT professionals at smaller companies, he noted. With a pool of professionals to draw from, IT managers and workers can find innovations and solutions to problems.

Author: Amarpreet97

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A local networking and support group for information technology professionals was created in January but has already seen enough growth to impress its national organization and win hosting duties for a regional conference in 2010.

"We're getting ourselves noticed," said Gary Kern, president of the Association of Information Technology Professionals East Central Indiana (AITP-ECI).

AITP-ECI's goal isn't to get attention from the national or regional arms of the organization, but being known as a fast-growing chapter certainly helped the local group land the AITP regional conference, to be held locally in the fall of 2010.

"Rarely does a brand new chapter have the opportunity to be considered for that," Kern said. "We've grown so quickly our regional was very surprised."

Larry Schmitz, a Wisconsin IT professional and AITP Region 5 president for 2009, remarked on the local group in a recent e-mail.

"I have never seen a group of self-starting professionals accomplish what the leadership group of our newest chapter, the East Central Indiana Chapter, has done. They went from 'zero' to over 40 members literally overnight. They have also distinguished themselves as being the first chapter in our history to be awarded the bid to host a regional conference in their first year of existence," Schmitz wrote. The group has about 43 members.

AITP-ECI, founded by Kern -- chief information officer for MutualBank -- and several others in local information technology and business, is intended to provide networking opportunities for local IT professionals.

AITP-ECI's next meeting is at noon Tuesday at the Innovation Connector, 1208 W. White River Blvd. At that meeting, a representative of Cisco Systems, a supplier of networking equipment and know-how, will speak.

The regional conference, likely to be held at the Horizon Convention Center, could draw as many as 75 IT professionals in a "two-day general technology conference with leadership of AITP meetings," Kern said.

Elizabeth Rowray, a local economic development official and founding member of AITP-ECI, said the group's establishment "greatly assists our economic development efforts. Within the last six weeks, I have cited the AITP-ECI to two separate IT prospects visiting our community as evidence of the diversely educated IT workforce in our community."

The local group is also reaching out to the community through its philanthropic committee. Kern said. AITP-ECI will work with Christian Ministries to help the charitable organization network its computers.

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IT group seeing growth, getting attention