A colleague of mine just sent me a link from the Canadian Press.  Most people in the U.S. know we host our summer technology camps at the top universities in the country – Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA…

As we begin our expansion into Canada, it is interesting to get a lay of the land.  Here’s a quick read on some of the top schools in Canada.  We’ve launched iD Tech Camps at the University of Waterloo.  We’ve also launched the iD Visual Arts Academy at McGill University.

The Canadian Press

Date: Thursday Oct. 8, 2009 5:55 PM ET

TORONTO — The prestigious Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings are out and 11 Canadian universities have made the Top 200 list.

Six Canadian universities have even advanced in their standings over the previous year’s list, with Montreal’s McGill University ranking the highest at number 18.

McGill, which is the only Canadian university in the top 20, was also one of the six Canadian institutions that advanced in its ranking this year over last year’s list.

The University of Toronto was the next highest on the list at number 29, improving from 41st spot last year, while the University of Alberta made a huge leap from 74th spot last year to number 59 this year.

The universities of Waterloo, Calgary and Western Ontario also moved up on the list, with Calgary soaring from 170 to 149.

The other Canadian schools that made the grade were UBC, the Universite de Montreal, Queen’s, McMaster and Simon Fraser.

So, rest assured, when you attend one of our summer programs in Canada, you’ll have the peace-of mind-in knowing that your are not only learning great technologies–but you are doing so at an institution of prominence not only in Canada, but also the rest of the world.

Have a great day!

-Pete

Dear iD Nation,

I want to personally welcome you to the iD Family.  To our returning families, I know you’ve been looking forward to our 2010 launch.  Yesterday we started taking registrations at 8 AM, and the phones were ringing busily all day.  That’s a good sign!  We had  a banner year in 2009, so we think 2010 will be even better.

An obvious question many families are asking is “What’s New?”   I am going to cut and paste some content from our “What’s New” page on our website:

• Digital Catalog – Our summer camp catalog is now available.
• Registration is now live! – Register with our latest promotion and save $100 by 12-15-09.  And when you refer-a-friend, you now save $50 and your friend does too!
• New Locations – New prestigious university locations including the campuses of Harvard, Princeton, Adelphi, Bentley, the expansion of our Teen Academies nationally, and our expansion into Canada.
• New Courses at iD Tech Camps – Awesome new courses include iPhone® App Development, Digital Photography & Photoshop®, RPG Game Design & Graphic Arts Hybrid, Game Modding with titles including Warcraft® III, Starcraft®, Half-Life® 2 and more.  Go to courses and programs.
• Expansion of our Teen Academies – The  iD Programming Academy has expanded to MIT.  The intensive game development program, the iD Gaming Academy has expanded to Chicago and Seattle.  We’ve also launched the new iD Visual Arts Academy. The Teen Academies are for ages 13-18.
• iD 365 – Endless Summer – Upon registration at iD, you now get access to our monthly FREE online workshops, taught year round by live instructors.  More.
• Receive Continuing Education Units from Villanova University or Stanford Continuing Studies.  Details.
• The iD Guarantee – We average 6 students per instructor at iD Tech Camps.  If we exceed an  8:1 ratio, you get to return for a free week of camp at equal value.  It’s that simple!  It’s iD quality.  And it’s only at iD!  Note:  Not valid for Teen Academies. Get details.
• New Games – Hot new commercial gaming titles used in our gaming courses, gaming tournaments and Ultimate Gaming Weekends.
• Learn Valuable “Life Skills” – We’re building new life skills content for this year.  The curriculum will round out the summer experience. See the benefits of iD. We’ve also got fun new camp activities for students.
• Technology Isn’t Just for Boys – We’ve created more courses and modules that are be appealing to girls including Web Design & Flash® Animation, Graphic Design, Video Editing & Special Effects, Digital Photography & Photoshop and the new teen-only  iD Visual Arts Academy.
• Go Green – We continue our iD Greening initiative by promoting carpooling, reducing travel and energy consumption and establishing new outreach partnerships in the communities we serve.
• The Basement.  For Students Only! – Find out what the buzz is about.   Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  Blogs.  Student Project Uploads.  Camp Photos.  iD 365.  And more.  Head down to the The Basement!

OK, I’m back.  As you can see, we’ve been a bit busy preparing for this launch.  You might expect that we kick back and take a few months off in the Fall, but nothing could be further from the truth.  We’ve got the hardest working crew in the summer camp industry.  We’ve had teams working round the clock to pull all the pieces together…working with new locations (including the expansion of our Teen Academies and a push into Canada), developing curriculum, developing back-end applications, signing contracts, overhauling our website, developing content, designing our camp brochure, working with new corporate partners, creating new courses, and so much more.

The launch is a big, big, team effort, and it is a sign of our company’s organization and dedication to providing the very best.

On behalf of all our employees, we want to welcome you to the new camp season.  We hope you’ll take a few minutes to look around our website.  And, as always, we’re just a phone call away.

Best,

Pete Ingram-Cauchi

CEO, iD Tech Camps

A parent recently posed this question to me:

Dear Pete, I am looking for a comic design camp for my son this summer, 2009. Can you please direct us to somthing in the Pittsburgh or the Philadelphia area of PA. Thank you for your attention to our inquiry. My son attending ID-Tech camp in summer 2007 and loved this course but it does not appear to be offered as of late. Mom in distress…

We do not specifically offer a comic design camp, but we have introduced a couple new courses that might fit the bill this year.  Please check out our Create Your Own Adventures Course as well as our Graphic Arts Course–both are offered at most locations throughout the country, as well as at Carnegie Mellon University and Villanova University which are close to you.

Both courses offer some awesome content using some very relevant and fun platforms.

Hopefully this information helps.  We hope to see you out at our summer camp.

Best,

Pete

Whew, it has been a while and I have a lot of catching up to do on my blog!

Since my last entry I have been to two staff trainings; Lake Forest College in Chicago and last weekend at Villanova University in the Philadelphia area. We take staff training very seriously and require all new staff attend training and once trainings are complete we will have trained approximately 300 staff and about half of them were in attendance at Villanova last week.

We cover a lot of ground in the several days that staff attend: teaching skills, risk management, our online tools and forums, safety procedures – but the most memorable part of training is teaching people how to have FUN at camp.

Welcome to the exciting continuation of “Trip to iD Tech Headquarters”. If you are just tuning in let me bring you up to speed. We are the annual iD Tech Paella party, hosted by none other than CEO Big Pete himself.  Every year at this event my department, the regional managers, play a big prank on Pete. So what was the prank this year?

Our weapon of choice: little green army men, approximately 1,000 of them

Our mission: secretly fill every nook-and-cranny of Pete’s house with them

While Pete was distracted cooking Paella and dancing the “eclectic slide” my cohorts and I rotated in and out of Pete’s house, with pockets full of little green army men. Here are some photo’s from our embedded reporters:

However it doesn’t stop there! Under the cover of darkness, at around midnight, a special “Delta Force” of soldiers was mobilized and invaded the iD Tech Headquarters! Though the assault on Pete’s house was fun, we out did ourselves in the office!!! Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of operation “Make Pete Crazy with 1,000 little Green Army Men” and see Pete’s reaction!

Rita Cecil is the fourth winner of a free week of Day Camp for iD Tech Camps this season! Congratulations to Rita and we are excited to have your family join the iD Family!

Come see us at a camp fair event near you and enter for your chance to win! To find a camp fair in your area, simply call our client service department at 1-888-709-TECH (8324), option 1.

- TeamiD

Hey guys, this is a very special blog entry as I’m writing you from the iD Tech Headquarters. Most of the year I work from a smaller satellite office in SoCal, but I frequently visit the headquarters in San Jose for company summits. This particular summit, is one of our most important as it is the last time the whole company will meet before camp. We’ll be setting many important policies to ensure a smooth and safe camp experience for student and their families but we’ll also be focusing on another important initiative: everyone having FUN! Can you believe that we have as much fun in headquarters as we do at our camps!? In fact, sometimes I have a hard time telling the two apart! Just like our camps, our company has a lot of fun quirks and traditions, here are just a few that I got photo’s of while at HQ.

One of our most classis traditions is our “acknowledgement” ceremonies. It is how we conclude most days at iD Tech Camps, giving students and staff the opportunity to “acknowledge” someone who they feel deserves recognition. Some are heartfelt and some are silly, many are both. There are many different way of conducting them, but all incorporate a top-secret thigh-slapping, hand clapping, finger snapping sequence (I think I just gave it away). Many of our students and staff probably don’t believe that we do this at headquarters, but we do! And we have a lot of fun doing it!

Here are some pictures of an acknowledgement ceremony lead by SoCal regional manager Jami:

Big Pete and Stefan, from accounting, rock-paper-scissors for who gets to give the next acknowledgment:

A more recent tradition was started by our Field Support mastermind, Nancy, which is our 3:00 Pilates (and occasionally yoga) session. That’s right, every day at 3:00 iD staff can participate in an optional Pilates session (though in my office that’s usually when we take a trip to See’s candy downstairs). Here are some pic’s:

While there, I took a moment to introduce our newest regional manager, Charlie, to some of the other staff at headquarters as he also works offsite:

Charlie meets Rick and Crystal from IT                 Charile with Nina from Strategic Programs

But, I’m leaving out the BIGGEST iD TRADITION of all: PRANKS. Every year Pete generously opens his house for a “Paella Night” party, where he cooks up some delicious Paella for the whole company. However, an integral part to this event is that every year my department, the regional managers, play a big prank on him!

In the past, we’ve covered his lawn with forks, stolen all of his shoes, toilet papered his house and even stolen his car, however I think the prank this year may take the cake!!! Tune in next week for pictures!

iD Nation,

We’re rounding the corner to Summer 2009.  Our camps are thriving right now, and interest is at an all-time high for our summer computer camps.  But what makes a camp unique?  What makes iD Tech Camps unique?  SImply put:  It’s people.  Check out a few of the cool photos from a few of the very cool and creative people that are responsible for bringing iD Tech Camps to you.

A company that celebrates its employees is a company that thrives.

From our team of Regional Managers, Client Services Representatives, Admin folks, Field Services, IT and Marketing…the best team in the camp business is counting down the days until summer.  We are ready for an amazing summer.  Climb aboard!

-Pete

Todays lesson: Make changes globally across multiple files using the sync function of Adobe Lightroom CS4.

Click here to open in new window.

Stay tuned for more blogs and vlogs!

Developing apps and widgets for the iPhone, Facebook, etc. is hot right now.  There is keen interest in developing the skill set to enable the development of these apps.

Our client services department recently received an email from a client looking to register for the iD Programming Academy.  The client wanted to know if the skills learned at our summer camp will be transferable to a MAC working with X-code for the iPhone (specifically developing iApps).

Here is the answer, unedited, from our curriculum developer

Skills learned at iDPA are definitely transferable to X-Code.
The iD Programming Academy curriculum starts off with a brush up of programming basics and
then we jump right into programming of graphical user interfaces using
the Swing framework for Java and/or .NET for C#. Both frameworks are
extremely similar to Apple’s iPhone SDK (software development kit) used
to write iPhone applications on the Mac platform using X-Code. Students
will also learn how to create 3D graphics and animations using OpenGL, a
technology that is also integrated into Apple’s iPhone SDK. In summary,
the iD Programming Academy is the best fit for this student.

The iD Programming Academy is offered at Stanford University, and is almost sold out.
iD Tech Camps also offers programming camps in both C++ and Java at locations across the country.  The goal here is to create the next generation of computer science students.  Have fun.  Get interested.  Learn to program!

Check out all iD Tech Summer Camp Courses by clicking here.