CA Technologies and Swiss Universities Partner to Support Next Generation of IT Talent
December 05, 2014
Share this

CA Technologies partnership with two top Swiss universities is helping to nurture and encourage the next generation of IT talent. The Company invests CHF 200,000 annually in innovations under development by students at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Haute Ecole d'Ingénierie et de Gestion du Canton de Vaud (HEIG-VD), as part of a five year relationship announced last year.

To support the Company’s global commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, empowering women in IT and developing more software engineering computer science talent, SVP Bjarne Rasmussen will also join the board of a Master degree programme, which begins in September 2015 and was developed by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO).

“CA Technologies is a global company with a local commitment to foster tomorrow’s talent,” says Bjarne Rasmussen, chief technology officer and senior vice president, CA Technologies, EMEA. “We are very excited to be working with both the EPFL and HEIG-VD universities to further develop students’ technology skills that are needed in the application economy. This investment aligns with the Company’s recent announcement that it has joined The European Commission’s Grand Coalition to further facilitate collaboration amongst businesses and education providers to help attract young people to learn ICT subjects, and to address the major shortfall in the development of IT expertise across the continent.

HEIG-VD students will also be visiting CA Technologies R&D facilities in Silicon Valley during 2015 as part of their degree course, to gain practical experience and to learn more about the culture of innovation in the Company.

Every year, CA Technologies donates a total of CHF 200,000 in seed finance across both universities to kick-start innovation. The first to benefit from the investment is a pair of post-doctoral fellows at EPFL who are building a start-up around the web-service called MakeSends. It is a digital ‘safe’ for transferring highly confidential documents and is considerably more secure than most other FTP and other file transfer solutions currently on the market.

“We warmly welcome the depth and breadth of education support CA Technologies is offering EPFL,” says Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli, VP for Innovation and Technology Transfer, EPFL, which is ranked 17th in the QS World University Rankings. “As a global leader in IT—and especially in the application economy — CA Technologies is able to advise students on the evolving nature of technology and how their skills can be harnessed to make a difference. The financial investment in student initiatives is warmly welcomed too; it encourages innovation and the career prospects for both men and women in technology.”

STEM skills are becoming an increasingly important part of basic literacy in today’s knowledge-based economy. According to the Commerce Department, for example, people in STEM fields can expect to earn 26% more money and be less likely to experience job loss. However, interest in STEM topics is declining among most European countries, and the EU forecasts that by 2015, at least 700,000 young people will leave education without basic skills in STEM.

In Europe, CA Technologies supports a range of initiatives to help transform the lives of young people. In Germany, CA Technologies will sponsor students as part of the Deutschland-Stipendium government initiative to nurture talent at German universities. In the UK, the Company contributes to the IT Management for Business BSc (ITMB) degree to create graduates with the skills most relevant to the IT sector.

In France, CA Technologies works with the Passerelles Numériques NGO to assists young people in South Asia gain access to training and employment within the IT industry. And in Italy, CA Technologies has partnered with the NGO Sodalitas to support the European Skills for Jobs campaign led by CSR Europe, and backed by the European Commission.

Share this

The Latest

November 20, 2024

New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...

November 19, 2024

Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...

November 18, 2024

SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...

November 14, 2024

Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...

November 13, 2024

AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...

November 12, 2024

If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...

November 08, 2024

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 11, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ...

November 07, 2024

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives ...

November 06, 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries around the world. From optimizing business processes to unlocking new levels of innovation, AI is a critical driver of success for modern enterprises. As a result, business leaders — from DevOps engineers to CTOs — are under pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows to stay competitive. But the question isn't whether AI should be adopted — it's how ...

November 05, 2024

The mobile app industry continues to grow in size, complexity, and competition. Also not slowing down? Consumer expectations are rising exponentially along with the use of mobile apps. To meet these expectations, mobile teams need to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to their app experience ...