- Cyber Corps, a program begun during the Clinton Administration, offers students free
tuition, a monthly stipend, valuable experience, and a guaranteed job after graduation. The
program is now available at 11 colleges and universities and is being expanded to include
at least four more. Those taking part in the program, agree to work for two years for one
of several government agencies after earning a degree in cybersecurity. With the boost in
attention after 9-11, there are more applicants than there are slots to fill -
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4135141.htm (San Jose Mercury News,
23 Sept 02)

- Nextel, Sun Microsystems, and Motorola are offering more than $45,000 in
scholarships and grants to students who develop the best Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition
(J2ME) applications tailored to making university life easier. This "University Wireless
Developer Contest" runs through Nov. 1, 2002 and is a first for the group. Contestants
must be either full-time undergraduate/graduate students or faculty at an accredited US
university and will be judged on university application relevance, sophistication and the
business model - http://developer.nextel.com/

- Sun Microsystems will give software worth more than $650 million to ministries of
education in Europe and South Africa, with a plan underway to for US schools as
well. Similar donations have been given to Asia. The hope is to bring StarOffice to
students from elementary school to college and unseat Microsoft Office as the
prevalent software for word processing and spreadsheets. This move should find
favor with school administrators who have been upset with Microsoft's recent price
changes - http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1032211962474404435,00.html (Wall
Street Journal, 17 Sept 02)

- A recent survey conducted by Statistics Canada indicates that people seeking IT
employment need both formal education and work experience. The survey was for
IT employees in the areas of insurance, architecture, engineering, related services,
and computer systems design. Students hoping to enter the IT workforce should
have a grounding in the "why" of technology, not just the "what," because the "what"
changes every 18 months. They should also obtain real-world experience and consider
which industry interests them, since IT work is so different from one industry to
another - http://www.idg.net/ic_945107_1794_9-10000.html (ITWorld, 5 Sept 02)