Peoria, IL – Midstate College hosted, for the first time, a Tech Day on Saturday morning, May 17, 2014, for students and faculty in the Information Systems and Technology Departments.

The Director of the Information Systems and Technology department, Donna Greer, started the day by sharing the goal of this event, “The goal of Tech Day is to bring together local IT businesses, Midstate IT students and faculty to discuss and share with each other IT trends and challenges.” The day started off with talks by Cindy Olson from Heart Technologies, who is also a graduate of the Midstate’s IT program, Ryan Stalets from Sora Technologies, and Doug Orwig from Pekin Insurance. Doug Orwig is also a part-time instructor for Midstate College. A common thought was shared with the participants in that not only do students need technical skills to work in the IT workforce, they also need soft skills such as working in a team environment, and solving IT challenges while professionally handling the people who are attached to them. Ryan Stalets said it best, “Sora Technologies is in the people assisting business, just as much as the IT problem solving business.”

During Tech Day, the students shared several projects they had worked on during the spring quarter including a new department website and Android mobile apps. A computer forensics demonstration was also shared.

Ms. Greer summarized the event by saying, “The event went well because Tech Day reached its objective of bringing like-minded individuals together from industry and education to share IT ideas”.

For more information, please contact Ashley Spain, arspain@midstate.edu or 309.692.4092 ext. 1150