as most know, Project 3 is a mix of all experiences interns have in the first two projects. It may have taken a few days, but our unit is becoming a well-oiled machine.

Our cycle is split into two teams: a .net/database admin team, and a web development team. Each team consist of three members, 1 member from each team acts as a floater, learning both skills along the way.

Our cycle tries to “work smart” instead of hard to take advantge of this small amount of time allotted to us. Conceptualy, we have reached our first milestone of the project; and we look forward to raising the bar not just for ourselvs, but for how the students, Non-profit organizations, and faculty ultilize the steans center.

Any suggestion from past project managers or icstars community can help immensly,

that is all for this time

Several passionate gamers around the Chicago area decided to get together to encourage creativity, design and game play in the Chicago area. We determined that the best way to do this would be via an exciting challenge, thus the Windy City Web Game Design Challenge was born.

As we brainstormed how to create a compelling contest, we decided that we would provide an opportunity for local talent at the student and professional levels to showcase their design and development skills.

Individuals or teams can register and compete using any of the major game design technologies, provided that the submitted game can play on Windows, Mac OS or the XBox 360 system.

For more details visit the page at:
http://www.gametime24x7.com/wcwgdc/

In this heyday of cycle 16’s growth in our cycle, we have fallen somewhat short of recognizing cycle 15 and their accomplishments, past, present and to come,

It is perhaps the most difficult thing one can do to go through icstars* to a place of ambiguity. A place where folk may not know what is coming next.

But one thing is certain, whatever does come next is and will be a challenge. To that end, I wish all of cycle 15 peace and resilience through this next phase of growing pains. And I look forward to seeing all of you making the best of the armament icstars has given you.

Take the next few years as your launching pad to set yourself up, so that you may make opportunities for others.

All the best,

cycle 16

Cycle Updates follow

Excelon inc. is in need of many entry level positions to be filled, updates to this will be forthcoming, so watch the vault.

Whew!
It is interesting how being knee deep in query work can stimulate the mind. The past few days have been extremley interesting for us in cycle 16. We have been constructing queries that build responses to business answers.

In a way, I feel like my laptop has transformed to that robot from lost in space:

“Danger fortune 500 company, Danger”

Perhaps the most intersting and engadging thing about geek week is that the more you construct queries given to us in task, the more one understand about the rules of SQL.

For each cycle, we try to provide documentation and updates to further help the cycle before us through this week. Said updates are coming my perspective interns, just let a brother wrap his head around this first!

Guys,
Below (also attached) are the notes From the AA meeting Tuesday. I tried to get everything down on paper, so it’s a bit less organized than I would have liked. Feel free to add/edit/revise and shoot back to me, and I’ll be happy to update. I think I covered most of what was discussed though. Lots of new stuff, so for those that couldn’t attend please take a look.

Thanks!
 Seth

April 4th Community Luncheon on 5th floor
Teaching opportunities available for alumni
Subject: Broad overview
“What it’s like outside i.c. stars”
Share your experience of Post cycle
Look for posting of date/details on vault soon (Tiffany Mikell)
Friday is c16’s final presentation of project 2
See TS’s email about alum survey
2 surveys were sent. Alum and Volunteer. Contact TS if you did not receive Alum survey
YOY leads increased 90% due to alumni referrals. Keep up the referrals!
Job Fair Network Initiative

www.soldiermorale.com COME OUT AND SHOW SOME LOVE TO CYCLES 15 & 16. HANG OUT WITH US, HAVE A DRINK, THEN GET WHOOPED IN SOME LASER TAG!
COME SUPPORT C15 ON THEIR JOURNEY’S INTO THE REAL WORLD!
COME MELLOW OUT WITH C16 CELEBRATE THE END OF PROJECT 2! www.soldiermorale.com

ALSO: Check out our website, if you have any family and friends in the miltary, sign up to our site and create a profile! www.soldiermorale.com

READ ATTACHMENT

We are hoping to start engaging i.c.stars candidates earlier in their process and start adding value for them right from the start. In addition, there have been multiple requests for ongoing learning opportunities for alums.

I’m hoping to evolve the vault into a community that could serve both groups needs.

The first step to achieving this goal is to provide opportunities for online learning through courses. I’m hoping to use the drupal organic groups capabilities for this purpose on the vault. A course would run for 2 weeks or so, have an instructor and an assistant and students. The course would contain online resources and exercises. The instructor and assistant would comment on students posts for exercises as well as answer questions about the exercises themselves and resources. This model is primarily suited for curriculum that has text/document based solutions to exercises, e.g. programming, business analysis, leadership.

Greetings Alum

Here’s info on our next Alumni Association Meeting.

When: March 11, 2008
Where: Studio
Time: 6pm

Agenda:
Transitions
Next Steps
Who’s at the helms

*For those who can’t attend, be on the look out for a post from Seth that contains teleconferencing information.

Cycle 16 has just had Eric Lannert’s famous financial workshop during project 2.

I must admit I had some idea of the depths of profit margins. a product has to recoup all of what it took to produce it right? Eric’s workshop made it apparent it takes way more than that.

We search stock trends and found out that the monetary value of a company goes way beyond that of its products or services. Large companies are usually worth a fraction of their stock prices. Thought these companies post huge quarter earnings.

for example, think of a business that has a very simple product or premise. like music for example. Seems fairly simple eh? Make a record, sell it for 15 dollars in a stoire. that 15 dollars actually is half recop money and half pure profit.

that means that 50 percent, HALF of what we pay for goods is actually not even paying for the good at all. It is just lining the pockets of a market that can do everything BUT perdict the future.

Chicago’s 9th Annual Diversity Employment Day Career Fair

Press Release

30+ Major Chicago Area Employers have over 1000 jobs and career positions available ! One Time Opportunity for FACE to FACE interviews on Tuesday, March 6th.

Chicago’s “Best and Largest” Annual Diversity Career has 30+ Major Employers with over 1000 Jobs and Careers available!!

There are jobs in Chicago

Greetings All!

This is LaDawn Norwood again from the YMCA….I promise this is my last announcement :). I just wanted to point out that the YMCA wil be sponsoring a college tour over Spring Break. The college tour is for high schoolers and slots are still available. Further details are shown below and attached. Let me know if you have any teens in your programs that would like to sign-up…

LaDawn Norwood

******************
The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago will be sponsoring a Spring Break College Tour the week of
March 14-21. This event will give high schoolers the opportunity to visit colleges located in Alabama and Tennessee. The tour cost is $385, which includes transportation, lodging, a daily Continental breakfast, some planned activities, a t-shirt and a journal.

This college tour is open to all high school students; however space is limited. So don’t delay…sign-up today.

Please reference this page for a list of keyword resources (pertinent to project 2): http://vault.icstars.org/node/187