Coalition goal: Tech skills for students
Pre-internship program not only about coding
As technology continues to evolve, young adults entering the workforce, regardless of profession, will increasingly need to understand how data and artificial intelligence affect where they work.
That reality has prompted the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition to form a pre-internship program that aims to help college, and some high school, students obtain the tech knowledge they’ll need as they begin their careers.
The training is for everyone, not just those focused on careers in technology, engineering or computer science.
Students whose major areas of study might include architecture, marketing, social science, communications or other fields will need to understand how technology could potentially affect their chosen profession.
“Regardless of your discipline, understanding the way that data is sourced, structured and then (being) trained to really augment human intelligence is a big part of the way in which we will see digital transformation occur,” said Laura Schmidt, chief talent development officer for the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition. “Most students will think of tech as a computer science class. That’s not tech anymore. Almost every job requires some technical skills and an understanding of the way that tech is enabling new solutions.”
In 2020, the coalition created a virtual internship program as a way for students to gain that professional experience as businesses were canceling their internships as a result of COVID-19.
The first cohort had 120 students, including 20 high school students, who learned about utilizing data and different forms of technology that could potentially benefit their everyday work lives.
“We felt as though having a small group of high school students actually was additive to the experience,” Schmidt said. “We saw college students mentoring high school students; we saw high school students approaching problems very differently than some of the college students.”
Since last year, the coalition has revised the program to make it a preinternship, which starts June 9. Applications are currently being accepted.
Matthew Friedel, lecturer at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, helped design the curriculum for the program and said businesses are “flush with data.”
“There’s a difference between ‘big data’ and ‘a lot of data,’” Friedel said. “Companies are now trying to gain some knowledge off of everything that they collected and hopefully, at the end of the day, that results in better products and services.”
Aside from the curriculum, Friedel said the program hopes to have at least 50% of its students from underrepresented communities such as women and people of color.
“I think there’s a misconception that with artificial intelligence or any sciences, it’s somebody sitting in a dark corner with a computer, coding,” Friedel said. “Not all the jobs are going to be coding related. You need people that have communications skills . ... You need people who are going to be there who can be concerned about algorithm bias, which is a very real thing.”
‘Not just going to be coding’
Companies such as Northwestern Mutual, West Bend Mutual, Rockwell Automation and others have vetted the course work, Friedel said, and in some cases will participate in the education.
Bringing in local companies is key to helping students learn about the tech jobs available in the area.
“A lot of students are under the impression that they have to leave in order to be able to secure tech jobs,” Schmidt said. “We haven’t explained or educated or informed them of the types of tech being deployed in the Milwaukee region.
“We have a lot to offer in Milwaukee.”
Friedel said there are multiple fields and jobs, outside the conventional technology space, where these skills can be put to use.
“It’s not just going to be coding, it’s not just going to be hardcore engineering stuff,” Friedel said. “The desire is to catch some of those students who have a small interest and I think once they see it, it can be a lighthouse for their career.”
Besides arming students with knowledge to enter the workforce, the program has also been recognized by the Higher Education Regional Alliance with a “badge” that can help students get college credit for their participation in the program.
“Students that go through this program are going to have the ability to take that badge and go to their institution to determine if they can get college credit for participating in this program,” Schmidt said. “My understanding is this is the first HERA badge that has been approved (in Wisconsin).”
Mikayla Gilbert, a UWM student, went through the program in the summer of 2020.
“I was exposed to strategic thinkers, powerful players in the community, people who want to see people from diverse backgrounds succeed,” Gilbert said. It’s easy for people to say they want to change their community ... the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition, actually put the work in.”
After attending the program, Gilbert said she felt more confident and went on to do a virtual internship with the Smithsonian Institution. There she came up with an idea to reach out to educators and potential donors using LinkedIn.
Gilbert pitched her idea using Air Deck, a program that helps create more professional multimedia presentations, which she learned about during her time working with the coalition.
“It did generate some buzz around actually integrating into a more professional social media platform,” Gilbert said. “I felt that there was an untapped market that we can reach out to and that we can partner with. And we can find donors using LinkedIn.”
Schmidt hopes that as students gain knowledge and skills surrounding technology that they will consider staying in the area to pursue their careers.
“We learned that students from across many disciplines can benefit from understanding how technology is not only helping but also affecting the careers they’re preparing for,” Schmidt said. “We also learned that students that participate in these programs, especially when they’re put on regionally, they’re more interested in staying in the region. Because they better understand a wide variety of opportunities instead of maybe a singular opportunity for the future.”