Minneapolis, Minnesota — The Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) is proud to announce the start of the 2020 program year for its successful SciTechsperience Internship Program. Since 2012, SciTechsperience has helped connect nearly 1,700 college students to paid STEM internships at small Minnesota companies.
Designed to build and retain Minnesota’s STEM workforce, SciTechsperience provides employers with a fifty percent wage match worth up to $2,500 per intern. At least 200 wage matches are available on a first come, first hire basis in the 2020 program year. To be eligible, businesses must have fewer than 250 employees worldwide.
By offering students unique access to lesser known small businesses, SciTechsperience is creating STEM internship opportunities that benefit Minnesota students and employers alike.
“The SciTechsperience program is a “win-win” for both students and companies,” said Jeff Tollefson, President and CEO of the Minnesota High Tech Association. “Students greatly benefit from the impactful work-based learning opportunities provided by employers, while hosting companies not only benefit from the work performed by students during the internship, they gain early access to new pools of tech talent that will help drive their future business success. We are proud to partner with colleges and smaller businesses across Minnesota in this important work.”
The personal and business value derived from the SciTech program is best expressed through the experiences of our interns and their supervisors.
Gausman and Moore intern Sina Kassaw said that before this internship experience, “I was pretty unsure of what the engineering industry looked like. SciTechsperience really brought that perspective and helped me landscape the industry here in Minnesota.”
“SciTech is a great resource, it gives us access to college students and future colleagues,” said Hugh Zeng, the principal engineer at HZ United LLC. “It was really helpful because, by virtue, we’re small and don’t have the same bells and whistles as a big company. But through this program, and through these internships, we’re able to take on some big deal projects. From that standpoint, the internship program gave us a leg up, with access to talented students and also financially, it’s been very helpful. It’s very critical for us.”
SciTechsperience is administered by the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) through a grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
Students and businesses can view requirements and apply to take part in the program at SciTechMN.org http://scitechmn.org/.
