April 25, 2016

Accenture Teams with City Colleges in the College to Careers Initiative, Helping to Prepare Students for Careers in Information Technology

CHICAGO; April 25, 2016 – City Colleges of Chicago today announced a collaboration with Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to help enhance and shape information technology (IT) curriculum at City Colleges of Chicago, as part of the community college system’s College to Careers initiative. Launched by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chancellor Cheryl Hyman, College to Careers aligns each City College with a high-demand career sector and partners faculty and staff with leading employers and four-year universities to prepare students for the tens of thousands of jobs coming to the Chicagoland region in fast-growing fields over the next decade.

“By teaming with our City Colleges, Accenture will help prepare our students to succeed and also help Chicago succeed in the highly competitive 21st century economy,” said Mayor Emanuel. “With tens of thousands of good-paying jobs in information technology expected to come to the Chicago region over the next decade, my goal is to ensure that our students have the skills and education they need to seize those opportunities, so I want to thank Accenture for being a strong and committed collaborator in that effort.”

As part of the College to Careers program, Accenture will provide City Colleges graduates with rotational internships within its internal technology team. The internships, which will be available to City Colleges IT graduates starting in spring 2016, are designed to help students learn and implement a variety of IT solutions within a dynamic global business environment.

“Not only will our students gain critical on-the-job IT experience through Accenture internships, this collaboration will help ensure City Colleges’ IT curriculum continues to evolve and positions our students and graduates for careers over the long-term in this fast-growing field,” said Cheryl L. Hyman, Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago.

Accenture will also consult with City Colleges on the development of its IT curriculum – which has experienced an overhaul in the last few years with support from employer partners – as well as on the review of college IT facilities, teacher-practitioner and networking opportunities for students, and offering internships and job interviews for City Colleges of Chicago graduates. This program is aligned with Accenture’s global corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed, which equips people with the skills that open doors to employment and economic opportunity. Accenture has already worked with City Colleges on a course aimed at helping students grow soft skills that employers seek, such as critical thinking, teamwork, organizational and communications skills.

Jim Coleman, managing director of the Accenture Chicago office, said: “We are excited to be joining forces with City Colleges of Chicago and the College to Careers initiative. Collaboration of this nature can lead to systemic, positive change by opening doors to education, future employment and economic opportunities, especially in such demand-led skills found in IT.”

Wilbur Wright College is City Colleges’ Center of Excellence for IT, offering several new associate degree and certificate programs in disciplines that include computer science, networking systems and technology, web development and more. City Colleges students may begin their IT studies at any of the seven City Colleges.

About City Colleges of Chicago
The City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) is the largest community college system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation, with 5,500 faculty and staff serving 100,000 students annually at seven colleges and six satellite sites city-wide. CCC is in the midst of a Reinvention, a collaborative effort to review and revise programs and practices to ensure students leave CCC college- and career-ready. CCC’s College to Careers initiative partners with industry-leading companies to prepare Chicagoans for careers in growing fields.

The City Colleges of Chicago includes seven colleges: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College, Olive-Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College. The system also oversees the Washburne Culinary Institute, the French Pastry School, two restaurants, two cafes, a banquet facility, five Child Development Centers, the Center for Distance Learning, the Workforce Academy, the public broadcast station WYCC-TV Channel 20 and radio station WKKC-FM 89.3. For more information about City Colleges of Chicago, call (773) COLLEGE or visit www.ccc.edu.

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 373,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

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Contacts

Julie Bennink
Accenture
+ 1 312 693 7301
julie.l.bennink@accenture.com

Cam Granstra
Accenture
+ 1 312 693 5992
cameria.l.granstra@accenture.com