DaytaOhio leader gets statewide platform
Thursday, November 06, 2008
FAIRBORN — Terry Rapoch has been given a bigger platform from which to promote information technology as a building block for economic development in Ohio.
Rapoch took over this fall for a two-year term as chairman of the board of governors of the Ohio IT Alliance, a technology organization funded by the Ohio Department of Development.
He is criss-crossing the state to work with business executives on how information technology can help build their companies.
He also is weighing in with universities that offer advanced degrees in computer science to help ensure they produce graduates with the skills that the business world needs, and can retrain IT specialists so that they are able to work in multiple technologies and databases. Those schools include the University of Cincinnati, Wright State University, Ohio State University and Kent State University.
Rapoch has served on the statewide IT alliance's board since 2005, the same year that the former NCR Corp. executive became a full-time employee of daytaOhio, the Ohio Wright Center for Data based at Wright State University. He is now president and chief executive officer of daytaOhio, a high-tech center which focuses on using visualization and computing technologies to boost human and business performance.
He was in Portsmouth for a meeting last week. He has met with Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who doubles as director of the Ohio Department of Development, to discuss work force development issues.
Business trips to the Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland areas are in Rapoch's plans, along with eventual trips to other states to promote Ohio's IT capabilities to computer manufacturers and software vendors.
"It's a lot of driving," he said Thursday, Nov. 6.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.
Promoting IT's versatility
The Ohio IT Alliance is a state Edison Technology Center, chartered by Ohio's governor and funded through the Ohio Department of Development's Thomas Edison Program. It and daytaOhio, also state-funded, work with companies and universities to encourage economic development through information technology.
The biomedical, aerospace, advanced materials and sensors fields are key targets for growth through information technology applications.
