MIT launches IT program for Accenture workers

To help meet the global demand for a highly skilled IT workforce, Accenture and the MIT office of Professional Education Programs (PEP) are working together to develop the Accenture Solutions Delivery Academy, a new training and certification program based on the company’s application delivery curriculum.

“Educational innovation and leadership in a global industrial context continues to challenge us to find new and broader ways of achieving excellence and impact,” said Dick K.P. Yue, associate dean of engineering at MIT and faculty director of PEP. “Our program with Accenture provides one model for industry-campus engagement focused on professional education.”

“MIT’s input into the program has been invaluable, giving insight into structure, content and approach,” said Paul Richardson, an Accenture senior executive and sponsor of the program.

Accenture’s two-year collaboration with PEP includes ongoing review of the academy’s educational content, student assessments and overall program design by several MIT School of Engineering faculty who are experts in subjects such as Java, C++, SAP, host-centric and Microsoft technologies and the software-development lifecycle. Faculty feedback is incorporated into course material and examinations.

Approximately 20,000 Accenture employees are eligible to enroll in the program, making it the largest such initiative ever undertaken by PEP. The first participants are expected to receive their certification this August.

Employees who successfully complete the program will be awarded “application developer” or “application designer” certifications by Accenture and PEP, recognizing software engineering, system integration and application delivery skills.

“One of MIT’s abiding strengths is our interest in taking the ideas we develop in our classrooms and using them in actual practice. Through our collaboration with Accenture, we have the opportunity to do precisely that: We have a chance to affect how thousands of people at Accenture do their work,” said Steven Lerman, Class of 1922 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.