INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA
INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA
The DCA is playing a key role in helping to promote
the data centre industry to the workforce of the
future. Amanda McFarlane, PR and Marketing
Manager DCA Global, tells us why it is so important
for the industry to be more proactive in promoting
itself in order to recruit talented professionals and
explains how this shift is already under way.
n the time that I have been working
with the Data Centre Alliance (coming
up to three years now) the lack of talent
coming into the sector has continued to
be a growing concern. I assume this was
the case long before I even set foot in the
offices of the trade association.
It’s not all doom and gloom however, as
something has changed. A monumental
shift is taking place. The data centre
sector is starting to wake up to the fact
that it needs to promote itself far more
effectively as an attractive place for those
wanting a career in technology.
The DCA, in collaboration with STEM
Learning and Closerstill Media, agreed
to support a STEM initiative at the Data
Centre World event in London this year. The
DCA offered to provide a range of industry
experts from its membership to host
sessions with groups of year eight students,
with a view to extolling the virtues of the
sector and capturing their imagination.
I was amazed by the positive response
when the request for experts went
out. In fact, within hours I had more
experts than I knew what to do with. The
sheer volume of support and variety of
volunteers was fantastic.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
As a result of this we also decided to host a
STEM Ambassador Networking Event (kindly
hosted by ABB in their VIP lounge at DCW).
It was refreshing to see just how much
appetite there was from the sector to get
things moving and to try to formulate better
methods to reach out to schools, colleges
and universities to spread the word.
The DCA continues this important work
and, as part of our Data Centre Re-
Transformation event taking place in
Salford Quays, Manchester, on September
11, we have introduced a track exclusively
designed for students considering a career
in the technology sector.
Our aim is to bring Data Centres (and all
they do) out into the light.
The dedicated student career track will
include two sessions:
Session 1 – Why data centres are the
super charged engines that power our
digital world
Session 2 – Why you should make the
data centre sector a career of choice
Students will also have the opportunity to
sit in on keynote presentations delivered
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