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THE
CREATIVE COAST HELPS LAUNCH TECHFEST 2005
FOR
TECHNICAL AND CREATIVE STUDENTS
March 30, 2005
Savannah – Following on the success of last semester’s “KnowledgeShare”
at Armstrong Atlantic State University (AASU), where local knowledge-based
businesses Color Maria (www.colormaria.com), and Go Software (www.gosoftware.com)
(now Verifone) had the chance to meet in a more casual setting with
AASU computer science students, The Creative Coast (TCC) has decided
to “one-up” themselves by launching a regional “TechFest
2005” for technical students of five local area schools.
Tech Fest 2005 is an exciting opportunity for Savannah area students
to strengthen relationships with Knowledge-Based Businesses (KBB)
in the Savannah area. Students from AASU, Georgia Southern University,
Georgia Tech Savannah, Savannah State University, and South University
will have the opportunity to network with Project managers and programmers
from local KBBs.
The first half of TechFest 2005 will spotlight students presenting
projects. The second half features two sessions where KBB representatives
will provide a five-minute overview of their company to subsets of
students and faculty. TechFest 2005 allows KBBs to meet talented students,
potential hires, and intern candidates. Furthermore, it is a positive
way for knowledge-based businesses increase visibility to a large
group of our area's high tech community.
TechFest will rotate on an annual basis from AASU in 2005 to the next
institution willing to host in 2006. This will help diffuse any inter-school
competition and promotes fairness.
“We got such great feedback from last semester’s KnowledgeShare,
we decided to do it even bigger, badder and better,” said The
Creative Coast’s executive director, Chris Miller. “We want
students to know that there ARE viable job opportunities for them
in the Savannah area, after they graduate college. There’s definitely
a reason for them to stick around.” Miller surmised.
Fitz Haile, TCC’s Project Manager for the Techfest event has
been coordinating closely with the TechFest committee at AASU. “Think
of TechFest as a career-fair, student research competition, and local
business mixer…all rolled into one. Take that, and put it on
steroids…that’s TechFest.” Haile also said that TechFest
was a great opportunity for the education community and local knowledge-basedbusinesses
to begin to establishing meaningful relationships that may benefit
them in the future.
Letty Shearer, Director of Economic & Community Development for
AASU, was on the TechFest organization committee with Chris McCarthy,
Instructional Technology Support Specialist for AASU’s Computing
Department. “We’re just glad we were able to help and host
this great event this year. We’re really hoping TechFest will
become an annual event, hosted by a new school each year,” said
Shearer.
Specially formatted student resumes will be available in a directory
to all knowledge-based business (KBBs) representatives. Students will
receive a directory of KBBs participating in the event, complete with
contact information and business descriptions.
TechFest will be next Friday, April 8, from 2pm-5pm in AASU’s
Science Center (SC1402, SC1405, or SC140).
For more information, visit www.thecreativecoast.org/techfest/ If
you are a knowledge-based business looking to participate in TechFest,
please contact Fitz Haile at fitzhaile@thecreativecoast.org or 912.447.8450.
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