OREANDA-NEWS. Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), the leading IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced the completion of its fifth annual goIT summer camp program in the Cincinnati area.

The summer camp exposes students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related career paths, while providing hands on activities and projects that increase exposure to industry specific technologies. The three-day camp culminated with a competition at TCS’ largest North American software delivery center in Milford, Ohio.

Local colleges and universities were also on-site to meet with the students and see the competition firsthand. Free for all students, the TCS goIT program provides in-school IT career awareness workshops and hands-on technology education.

Since its inception, the program has reached more than 7,000 students across 35 school districts in Ohio and Michigan.

It is led by TCS volunteers who host workshops and other training targeted toward introducing students to new technologies and providing IT career awareness. These technology workshops range from basic programming lessons to open source 3D modeling. “We are pleased to host our fifth goIT summer camp at our Milford, Ohio facility,” said Amar Naga, director of operations, Tata Consultancy Services. “We believe that TCS is uniquely positioned to use its core IT competencies and technology leadership to address the STEM education issue.

Over the past five years, this program has continued to expand and grow and it is our hope that students who complete this program will pursue degrees and ultimately careers in the STEM fields.” Throughout the summer camp, students were involved in a number of design, development and implementation projects.

These include programming robots using mobile programming technology to run chariot races, joust and storm the castle. The teams used open source 3-D modeling tools to design a ‘coat of arms’ for their robots. Each design was judged based on a set of criteria and during the final challenge the last robot with its coat of arms still attached won. “The innovative goIT program is an outstanding investment by TCS in young Ohioans,” said Mark Patton, JobsOhio managing director for information technology.

“Ohio is home to some of the world’s top universities. Introducing students to STEM-related career paths ensures we’re feeding those schools with local talent and ultimately giving the students, and Ohio, a competitive workplace advantage.”

“Technology is a critical part of Ohio’s economic future and, as such, we are encouraged to see technology companies like TCS take such a vested interest in our future STEM workers,” said Bob Proud, president of Ohio’s Clermont County Board of Commissioners. “We’re honored that TCS has chosen Ohio as its home base for this program and are thrilled to see it continuing to grow throughout the country.”

By 2018, research shows that STEM occupations are projected to grow by 17 percent, with 71 percent of STEM jobs focused on computing including cloud, data, app and security. This contrasts sharply with the mere 17 percent of high school graduates who are proficient and interested in pursuing STEM careers. The goIT program, which began in Cincinnati five years ago, is designed to address and correct the mere 17 percent.

In addition to existing goIT markets of Cincinnati, Columbus, OH and Midland, MI; this year, TCS is expanding the camp to reach students in Bentonville, AR, Edison, NJ, Minneapolis, MN, San Antonio, TX, Santa Clara, CA, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL and Toronto, Canada. With these additions, goIT will be a nationwide program covering 10 US locations as well as the greater Toronto region in Canada. “At the collegiate level, there is a serious need to increase the number of students who enroll for STEM related degrees,” said Art Helminki, head, department of electrical engineering and computing systems and director UC applied systems laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. “Programs like goIT contribute to the increase we’ve seen of local high school graduates enrolling in our curriculums which, to us, indicates that these programs are instrumental to establishing credible introductions to students.”