Working to Close the Diversity Gap in IT
Through an internship program, Prince George’s County, Maryland, hopes to attract tech companies in the process.
Bowie State University senior Benjamin Sinclair earned a full-time internship with Prince George’s County, Maryland’s Office of Information Technology this academic year, part of OIT’s effort to address the underrepresentation of minorities in IT positions.
Prince George’s County is majority-minority jurisdiction just outside Washington, D.C., and its government seeks to connect talent like Sinclair, who grew up locally and studies computer technology at Bowie State, with job opportunities.
Sinclair was one of 36 students exposed to technologies like 3D printing, Raspberry Pi and Splunk for the first time this summer. And he stood out as a team leader, using data insights to address the county’s challenges raising students’ reading and math test scores and figuring out ways to reduce pedestrian fatalities.
“Our model is to bring students in and give them tangible tasks to develop their software skills and turn them into workers people will eventually be interested in hiring,” said Vennard Wright, county chief information officer, in an interview. “We want to be viewed as a place where people come to hire talent and solve that diversity gap.”
Historically, that hasn’t been cash-strapped Prince George’s County’s reputation, so officials want to showcase local tech talent with the hope of attracting more tech companies to the area.
With that in mind, Sinclair was offered a second internship starting in the fall—having already been schooled in San Francisco-based Splunk’s operational intelligence platform over the summer.
The data-mining tool generates visualizations of imported datasets within minutes, Sinclair said, and the county wanted to know how often employees across all departments logged out of their accounts.
Hundreds of employee devices create log files that Splunk pulls together, rather than OIT having to go into each device individually, to determine relationships and tell a story. If a user accesses more than one network device, possibly indicating a breach, OIT will know.
“We want to be more proactive if someone is hacking into the network,” Wright said. “That way we can become a more secure environment.”
Sinclair’s Splunk savvy isn’t just benefitting security though; it’s also coming in handy measuring the performance of the county’s Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative. Part of Prince George’s push to improve its reputation, the 2012 program identified six neighborhoods facing serious public safety, educational, health and economic issues.
Data insights allow for more informed decisionmaking regarding the allocation of resources. Violent crime is already down 30 percent since targeting those neighborhoods where it’s prevalent, Wright said.
GIS maps and reports can be generated with Splunk detailing crimes by neighborhood, and the datasets themselves can be publicized so others outside government can create apps around them.
While Sinclair might continue such work for the county after graduating, that’s not the only goal, Wright said. Previous interns have gone on to work for Google and the National Security Agency.
The county still supports one prior intern now working with Bethesda, Maryland-based defense company Lockheed Martin when technical issues arise, said Sandra Longs, Prince George’s County’s IT training director.
“Whatever field they go into, we want them to get all the things they need to become a professional: showing up on time, being organized, speaking properly and presentation skills,” she said. “All of those components make a powerful employee, which is one of the main focuses for me, and we are able to still provide mentorship.”
Wright’s long-term goal is to make OIT’s internship model scalable.
Other county agencies have already replicated Wright’s program to assist minority students like Sinclair.
“These two internships have been the biggest blessings in my life,” Sinclair said. “They opened my eyes to how wide the IT field is.”
Dave Nyczepir is a News Editor at Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Washington D.C.
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