The Internship Seeding Initiative will be piloted in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and will provide paid internships for 50 students at 50 financial services and information technology companies in a ten-county region. Additionally, each business will be given access to TII’s “Internship eToolkit,” a complete step-by-step system to create and run effective internship programs. Most important is that every manager will receive advanced training about how to fully utilize and groom student’s talents.

Internships play a critical role in shaping the workforce of the future. Their importance in the improvement of the talent pipeline to meet industry demands cannot be overstated. By improving on both the philosophy and administration behind internships, a system of collaboration is created that gives companies a leg-up in attracting the best talent in their industry. Additionally, much like many aspects of business, learning to be an excellent internship coordinator is a niche skill that, once perfected, can give a company an edge over its competitors.

A common thread that leads to a successful internship is one-on-one experience. In developing this curriculum, we at TII have learned that most managers can maximize their efficiency by simply repurposing their time to manage and mentor. With this in mind, we have created a high impact, multimedia training program – customized specifically for supervisors – that takes aim at productivity as the key driver for a mutually beneficial internship experience.

Other components of TII’s Internship Seeding Initiative include: • The Internship Institute will promote education awareness campaigns and present its trademark Supervisor Orientation events throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania for all three academic terms in 2009. TII will make the best use of funding by utilizing large public venues and invite more employers and supervisors to participate. • The Internship Supervisor Orientation is a unique multimedia experience for all managers and mentors to learn and fine-tune their intern and program management skills. The proprietary training technique and content takes aim at intern productivity yield, student learning outcomes, and assuring an all-around mutually rewarding experience. These 90-minute interactive sessions feature TII’s Supervisor and Mentoring Guidebook, which participants review while seeing a synchronized best practices video. The purpose of this advanced training technique is to accommodate variable learning styles and reinforce the content that managers must put into practice.

We at TII are able to launch this pilot program in Northeastern Pennsylvania due to a $375,000 grant from Wall Street West, a non-profit organization focused on workforce and economic development in the region. Supported by fiscal agent Northeastern Pennsylvania Technology Institute (NPTI), we will use the funds to implement our initiative, as well as ensure a consistent model that is applicable to all industries.

“The Internship Institute joins more than 45 other organizations in Northeastern Pennsylvania that have received more than $10 million to create programs that focus on developing the skills for the next cycle of employment opportunities,” said Matt Connell, Chairman, Wall Street West Executive Committee. “Each funded program plays a role in the collective body of work that Wall Street West is creating that will lead to the long-term success of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s workforce.”

About Wall Street West
Wall Street West is a not-for-profit partnership in Northeastern Pennsylvania that is enhancing the financial services, information technology and related industries in the commonwealth through strategic workforce development and state-of-the-art economic development. Stemming from an interagency report by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury - whose recommendations make the ten-county region an optimal geographic location for secure data back-up and back office operations - the goal of Wall Street West is to work with firms in New York City and the surrounding metropolitan threat zones to establish supplemental facilities to safeguard data, fund the education and training of a growing workforce, and expand the competitiveness and potential of these industries.

The Wall Street West partnership is made up of the top-tier economic development agencies; technology investment groups; workforce development organizations; education and research institutions; and private sector companies in the region. With the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania acting as the project manager, Wall Street West has federal support through a $15 million Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant from the U.S. Department of Labor for education and job training, as well as a combined $24 million commitment by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, and private industry to enhance existing infrastructure.