What: Three-day Information Technologies Innovation Challenge for UTEP business and engineering students
When: The challenge begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13 and concludes at noon Friday, Nov. 15
Where: Union Building East
Close to 100 UTEP business and engineering students will participate in the first Information Technologies Innovation Challenge that will involve finding solutions to real-world problems in information technologies and the automotive industry.
The challenge starts in the Templeton Suite on the third floor of Union Building East. Representatives from General Motors, an event sponsor, will discuss the parameters of the project. The undergraduates, who major in accounting, marketing, computer science and computer information systems, will be assigned to four-person teams. The groups will present their results at noon Friday, Nov. 15, in the Tomás Rivera Conference Center on the third floor of Union Building East.
The winning team will earn $750, while second- and third-place finishers will receive $500 and $250, respectively.
Part of the challenge will be that the organizers will form the teams to replicate how a new employee would feel being thrown into a project with new collaborators with various personality types, said Aaron Cervantes, coordinator of UTEP's Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce. The Loya Center organized the event with the UTEP student chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals.
"Industry knows that UTEP provides students with a solid education, but they need opportunities to face challenges where they have to put all that is learned into practice," Cervantes said. "This type of event gives our students an idea of what the professional world will demand from them outside of the classroom. This is a chance for the industry to see first-hand the quality of UTEP students."
GM has been actively recruiting UTEP students for their IT operations throughout the United States.