Rendering of the IBM Services Center: Baton Rouge.
Back in March, IBM Senior Vice President Colleen Arnold and Governor Bobby Jindal announced the plan for the IBM Services Center: Baton Rouge, a software development project that is estimated to create 800 tech jobs.
According to Dima Ghawi, Manager of Talent Development at IBM, the company is ahead of hiring goals and has hired more than 100 new employees.
The Center is expected to open in the spring of 2015.
“You would not believe the amount of work we have accomplished in the past six months,” Ghawi said.
Louisiana Economic Development is also on board to assist in talent recruitment and developing STEM programs throughout the city and region.
During the original announcement, Jindal said, “For Baton Rouge, I think this may be the single most important announcement,” Jindal said. “It is that transformative.”
The Services Center is the result of a public-private partnership with a 14 million investment over 10 years that will be used expanded higher-education programs, such as LSU’s computer science program, which will use at least 65% of the funds. IBM plans to hire a range of college graduates and professionals with backgrounds in computer science and other backgrounds including engineering, mathematics, and science.
The Center is the latest in the series of investments IBM has made in high-tech science and innovation. It will provide software development and software maintenance services to clients in the United States, and other services including application development, application management and system integration.