Catherine L. Harper Foundation (CLH Foundation) is a nonprofit company with its primary office based in Plano TX. The company has been established for the purpose of addressing education gaps that exist between kids who are fortunate enough to have access to quality education and information systems and those who are less-fortunate. The goal is not to solve the broader issue related to education disparities among the fortunate and less-fortunate. CLH Foundation will primarily focus on providing quality education in the Information Technology arena.
“Outliers, The Story Of Success” is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell the famed sociologist. Mr. Gladwell is also the author of The Tipping Point and Blink. Outliers is based on the notion that “practice makes perfect.” According to an article from the Times and Sunday Times archives, Mr. Gladwell says that “if you want to shine, put in 10,000 hours.” The book Outliers is based on this notion. Mr. Gladwell uses Tiger Woods and the William sisters as prime examples. While Mr. Gladwell is very well educated in his own right, the idea of investing significant time in a particular skill or activity, as a way to make you better, is fundamental. On the other hand, by investing excessive time in a skill or activity an individual can ultimately become an “outlier” a member of that elite group whose skills far exceed the norm. Ironically, as simple as the idea is, most of us don’t get it. In fact, that is why “outliers” exist. Those who choose to take the outlier approach to certain skills like programming will eventually end up amongst the best-in-class for that skill.
CLH Foundation has made a conscience decision to leverage Mr. Gladwell’s theories related to the investment of 10,000 hour in a skill for our program. Our plan is to work with underprivileged students to get them on a path to achieving 10,000 hour building their unique capabilities in information technology, databases, programming and software development. We will challenge our protégés (ages 8 to 19) to spend 2 to 3 hours per week mastering the aforementioned skills.
It has often be said that success is where preparation meets opportunity. Our goal is to ensure our protégés are prepared when they are faced with the right opportunity. Given the current state of the US economy and the fact the US is continuing to fall behind countries like China and India in education, the time is now to ACT. CLH Foundation’s program will be based on a model that stems from Mr. Gladwell’s book Outliers and is called ACT – Access, Collaboration and Teach.
Access – CLH Foundation’s first priority is to provide access to information technology infrastructure. Our technology centers will include all of the components, literature and human resources necessary to allow our plans to be successfully executed.
Collaboration – It is extremely important that we collaborate with industry leaders including Chief Information Officers and other information technology professionals as a way to continuously validate our programs. We will assure our programs are aligned and current in terms of information technology trends related to current versions, new technologies, software and tools. We will also collaborate with other education programs to include classroom exchanges between international students in countries like China and India via Cisco’s Telepresence and other conference or collaboration technologies.
Teach – CLH Foundation will thoroughly teach our protégés the value of learning and investing in their careers early by staying on track to achieve 10,000 hours of training in information technology, programming and software development. Our protégés will contribute to resolving real business issues by developing information technology solutions. Our goal is to have our protégés complete a minimum of 6,500 hours of programming and other Information Technology training before they enter college and a minimum of 10,000 hour by the time they graduate from college.
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