2023 Newsletter Editions

A TALE OF DATA AND HUMANITY In which writer and subject are one and the same OpenAI Chatbot Editor‚Äôs Note: Amid the industry furor over the abilities of new and competing chatbots, we asked OpenAI‚Äôs ‚ÄúPlayground‚ÄĚ bot to tell us a relevant tale about technology and humans. Here, completed in under two minutes, is its […]

LAST WEEK, THE U.S. Department of Labor hosted its ‚ÄúClosing the Skills Gap‚ÄĚ (CSG) conference in Washington, D.C., bringing together recipients of four-year DOL grants for Registered Apprenticeship development from all over the country. One-hundred-fifty people attended, including 24 grantees, many of them bringing four or five team members. The presentations and panel discussions covered

Casey Kinsey, CEO, Lofty IF YOU WERE ever fortunate enough to benefit from the kind guidance of a mentor, you’ll be interested in hearing the story of this month’s interviewee. Casey Kinsey, founder and CEO of Fayetteville’s Lofty, has made his philosophy of mentorship an integral part of his company’s talent development policy. We sat

IN SOME AREAS of the country, they call this time of year ‚Äúthe dog days of winter.‚ÄĚ But looking around in Arkansas right now, the jonquils are ready to bloom, and it‚Äôs 70 degrees outside. The forecast is just as nice in this month‚Äôs newsletter. All around this great state, there are a number of

Jon Chadwell, Executive Director, Newport Economic Development Commission Newport, AR WHEN WE HEARD about the Newport Economic Development Commission’s bold new plan to train long-untapped segments of their Northeast Arkansas population for careers, including in IT, we just had to sit down with Executive Director Jon Chadwell and get him to tell us all about

A SKILLS STRATEGY FOR ALL TIMES 5 ways IT apprenticeships are the right idea for today’s economic climate Lonnie Emard, ACDS Apprenticeship Director IN RECESSIONARY PERIODS, company leaders often react quickly to cut costs in labor and training. When businesses need to do more with less is when IT apprenticeships become all the more attractive

MAGIC HAPPENED The improbable story of how Arkansas became a global capital of FinTech John Chamberlin Past President, Arkansas Academy of Computing BEFORE WE CALLED them memes, there was a computing cartoon that showed several people looking at a blackboard covered with a complex flowchart. The many boxes and decision points funneled down to one

Nitin Agarwal, Ph.D., Maulden-Entergy Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science, Director, Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS), University of Arkansas at Little Rock IN THE MIDST of the recent turmoil at Twitter, our first instinct was to get in touch with Dr. Nitin Agarwal, a UA Little Rock professor who studies

17 WAYS TO START YOUR NEW JOB OFF RIGHT! There’s much more to a job than the work itself Clint Hankinson, Director of Marketing YOU DID IT! After seemingly endless months of research, updating your resume, reaching out to your network, applying for jobs, and interviewing, you landed your new position! Now it‚Äôs time to

CALLING ALL EMPLOYERS! In this new year, let us show you innovative ways of finding the tech talent you’ve been looking for Lonnie Emard, ACDS Apprenticeship Director THE HOLIDAYS ARE over, and now you’re back to dealing with the same old same old of staffing issues: How do I find and attract the tech talent