Top Prizes in AITP Competition go to CoT CIS Students
October 26, 2009
Three 1st place and three 2nd place awards went to the University of Houston's student chapter of AITP
Three 1st place and three 2nd place awards went to the University of Houston's student chapter of AITP (Association of IT Professionals) at the AITP Region 3 Student Conference, in Dallas. The University of Houston sent 16 students along with one of its faculty sponsors, Bret Detillier, to Dallas to compete. All students on the UH team were from the College of Technology's CIS (Computer Information Systems) program.
The conference was held at the campus of UT-Dallas on October 22nd through October 24th. Over 200 students from over 20 different Universities were in attendance. During the conference, students were able to compete in various competitions related to skills needed within the IT industry. All of the competitions were developed and graded by industry experts from companies such as USAA, North Texas PC Users Group, Microsoft, Fujitsu, AT&T and WalMart. Students were able to sign up for six different undergraduate competitions. In the past, the best the University of Houston has done was one honorable mention. However this year, U of H took home six awards and received $900 in prize money. The awards won were:
1st Place – Systems Analysis and Design won by Chris McGuire and David Norelid
2nd Place – Systems Analysis and Design won by Monica Haaksma
1st Place – PC Troubleshooting won by William Zolandz
2nd Place – PC Troubleshooting won by Ronny Brehm
1st Place – Microsoft Office Solutions won by Chris McGuire
2nd Place – Database Design won by the team of David Norelid and Alan Walters
Of special note was the level of competition in the PC Troubleshooting Contest which initially started with 64 teams that took a written test in the Qualifying Round. Of those 64 teams, the 10 highest scoring teams were selected to compete in the hands on final competition. The University of Houston won 3 of the 10 available slots. University of Houston won first and second place in that contest. Our third team placed sixth.
The final significant accomplishment is that the University of Houston won approval to host the 2010 AITP Regional 3 Student Conference which will be held October 21st through October 23rd, 2010.
UH's student chapter of AITP currently has 60 student members and their faculty sponsors are Dr. Nada Khatib, nkhatib@central.uh.edu, and Bret Detillier, bjdetill@central.uh.edu.