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NEW FOR October 2007!

News at AITP-LI

AITP-LI Newsday Business Beat-March 20, 2008
Long Island IT group to hold forum on skills gap

The best way to close a skills gap is to devise a plan that reaches across the great divide. The Long Island chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals hopes to do that by taking its case to school.

The group will sponsor a breakfast forum Tuesday in Jericho at which IT executives will discuss their present and future hiring needs with some university officials. The event starts 8 a.m. in the Milleridge Cottage.

“The Long Island technology brain drain is well documented, but we shouldn’t assume that the battle is lost,” said Barbara Viola, the chapter’s president

View on Newsday Website here

AITP-LI Newsday Article -February 27, 2008
LI tech panel looks at the office of the future

When you’re in a room filled with information-technology experts and you’re not a techie, it’s easy to think you’ve stumbled into a foreign-language class.

That was the case Tuesday afternoon at the “Convergent Technologies” seminar at the Milleridge Inn in Jericho, where the arcane acronyms were flying: VoIP, SIP, and IVR, to name a few.

View on Newsday Website here

AITP Long Island Chapter Named “Association Outstanding Chapter”
Robust Educational Programs and Extensive Meeting Schedule Cited

The Long Island Chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) today announced that the national AITP Awards Committee has named AITP....read more.

Technology Showcase a Stunning Success

Our annual Technology Showcase/November meeting was a stunning success. View the vendor list- click here.

AITP-LI Newsday Article - November 27 2007

Economists have a tough time these days. They have to deliver the news no one wants to hear. And Pearl Kamer, the chief economist for the Long Island Association, was cognizant of that as she began to address the Long Island chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals Tuesday afternoon....Read More (pdf)

View on Newday Website here

AITP-LI Newsday Article - November 29 2007

For many years, Barbara Viola, president of the Long Island chapter of the
Association of Information Technology Professionals, kept the faith in tech.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.newsday.com/technology/ny-bzright5480129nov29,0,70137.story

Long Island Chapter Wins Co-Chapter of Year (2006) Award

After 52 years, our Long Island Chapter has finally won AITP national Association’s Highest Award, the 2006 Association Outstanding Chapter Award! In addition, we have also won the 2006 Chapter Outstanding Performance Award, and the 2006 Region 13 Outstanding Chapter of the Year..... read more

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AITP on Newsday
Carrie Mason-Draffen from Newsday writes about our November '06 meeting.
November 29, 2006

Robert Bagnall, Barbara Viola, Pearl Kamer

Business
Lack of housing, skilled workers hurting Island

BY Carrie Mason-Draffen
Newsday Staff Writer
November 29, 2006

The Long Island economy, though growing, faces enormous challenges because of the continuing shortage of skilled workers and affordable housing, economist Pearl Kamer told a high-tech group in Jericho yesterday.

"Barring any new spike in energy prices, there should be enough momentum in the economy to avoid another recession," Kamer told the Island's chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals at the Milleridge Inn in Jericho.

But Kamer, chief economist of the Long Island Association, a business group, warned, "The absence of affordable housing and the continued loss of young workers has increased the fragility of the economy."

The group also heard about some of the pitfalls of improperly monitored outsourcing from a Virginia security expert.

Despite the slowdown in the housing market, prices still shut out many young people on Long Island, in part because of the lack of rental units.

Rental units account for just 17 percent of Long Island's housing stock, far less than the 38 percent in Westchester County; 26 percent in Rockland County; and 32 percent in Bergen County, N.J., Kamer said.

Last year, more than half of Long Island's homeowners with mortgages as well as renters spent at least 30 percent of their income on housing, an amount meeting the federal government's definition of unaffordable housing costs.

The worker shortage is already weighing on the economy. In the past 12 months ended in October, the Island created just 3,100 jobs, partly because companies can't find enough skilled workers.

The worker shortage resounded with Judy Murrah, vice president of information technology at Holtsville-based Symbol Technologies Inc.

"It's difficult to find technically skilled professionals on Long Island," Murrah said in an interview.

As a result, salaries for those workers have been increasing, but she declined to say by how much. She said the company is thinking long-term and forging alliances with local universities to find future workers.

Kamer predicted a bright future for high technology on Long Island. New products will reinvigorate the industry, which is still climbing back from the bust of 2001. Smaller companies, including some on Long Island, are producing pioneering software and Web-based services relatively cheaply, she said.

"The new economics of software production may actually reverse the outsourcing of computer jobs to low-wage countries abroad," Kamer said.

Security expert Robert Bagnall, chairman and chief executive of Maverick-Security in Chantilly, Va., warned that companies that outsource computer work are vulnerable because they aren't aware when the outsourcers themselves outsource U.S. company operations.

It's something "the American company isn't aware of until a hacking incident," he said.

And Bagnall also stressed that companies often don't assess the cultural risks when outsourcing abroad. In some countries, hackers, for example, operate openly.

Read the Newsday Article

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