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Data Center Day Kicks Off Focus on Students, Future Workforce

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Data Center Day Kicks Off Focus on Students, Future Workforce

The 7x24 Exchange team celebrates International Data Center Day during the livestream of Tuesday's festivities in Phoenix. (Photo: Rich Miller)

The organizers of International Data Center Day hailed the event as an important first step in raising the profile of the data center industry and building a workforce for the future.

The 7×24 Exchange International celebrated the inaugural International Data Center Day Tuesday at the group’s Fall Conference in Phoenix, with Chairman and CEO Bob Cassiliano sharing the day’s purpose during a 30-minute presentation, complete with streamers, music, and visual effects.

“International Data Center Day is the culmination of the 7×24 Exchange STEM initiative,” said Cassiliano. “We have reached out to companies, alliance partners and media in the data center industry to support International Data Center Day and their response has been overwhelming. We are thankful for their partnership and confident that together we can achieve our goal to get the youth of America interested in the mission critical industry.”

Cassiliano also announced that the next International Data Center Day will be Wednesday, March 25, 2020. The event will be scheduled in March going forward.

International Data Center Day is an effort to raise awareness of the data center industry and to inspire the next generation of talent. The initiative, launched by 7×24 Exchange International, is the latest in a series of efforts to address a looming talent gap for data centers and cloud computing infrastructure.

The goal is to help the industry connect with future generations and ensure a steady flow of skilled labor, enhance the public image of data centers. The events objectives included:

  • Provide resources to educate people about what data centers are and how they work.
  • Illustrate the importance of the data center industry on our daily lives.
  • Share information on pursuing a career as a data center professional.
  • Create more opportunities for mission critical firms to recruit future employees

There was a wide range of observances by leading data center operators and professionals.

CBRE sponsored three data center tours to showcase what data centers are, how they function, and more.

“As part of our International Data Center Day sponsorship we worked with high school STEM programs, community colleges and universities to host a series of data center tours,” said Jeff Ginn, Senior Managing Director – Data Center Solutions, CBRE|Global Workplace Solutions. “These tours gave students the opportunity to go behind the scenes in a mission critical facility to see how it operates.”

Other data center companies also sponsored tours or on-site events to promote understanding of the data center industry.

Other data center professionals shared their “How I Got Into the Industry” stories.

Others shared resources to help young people understand data centers and how they work


What *is* the cloud? Where does it live? Today’s the perfect day to learn more → https://t.co/mGW4EA7TsD Happy #intldatacenterday! pic.twitter.com/2hKAVFphZB

And of course, there was an on-site observance in Phoenix, including the Data Center Career Tree and other visual aids that attendees could use to promote #intldatacenterday

For more information and to learn how you can participate, visit the International Data Center Day website.

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About Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.

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