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Intern Partnerships Awarded For Eleven Oklahoma Companies

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Oklahoma City (March 24, 2022) – The Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) awarded $363,924 in funding for eleven Intern Partnership projects to Oklahoma technology based companies. These projects will provide hands-on applied experience and introduce the intern to employment opportunities within the company and industry.

The OCAST Intern Partnership helps retain Oklahoma’s best and brightest undergraduate and graduate STEM students by matching them with an Oklahoma company to complete an innovative project in a high tech industry. The targeted industries are identified in the 2021-2026 Science and Innovation Strategic Plan for Oklahoma and include aerospace, autonomous systems and defense, biotechnology, and energy diversification.

“OCAST has a successful record with our Intern Partnership Program, which sees 98% of companies involved move forward with hiring their intern for a full time position”, said Michael Carolina, Executive Director of OCAST.

Awarded projects include embedded software engineering for aerospace autonomous systems, engineering scale-up for production of battery nanomaterials, and design and development of aircraft components for one of the nation’s largest airlines.

Selected interns must be currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate students from an Oklahoma-based college or university, or a CareerTech student concurrently enrolled in college programs. The projects, meanwhile, must provide beneficial and meaningful experience and exposure to real-world application of technology.

“We see the Intern Partnership as a workforce pipeline solution geared toward retaining STEM graduates to Oklahoma and ending the STEM graduate exodus from our state”, Carolina said.

A total of 27 total applications were submitted to OCAST. 11 projects were awarded funding for interns. Companies that will benefit from this cycle of the Intern Partnership include Infinite Composites, Skydweller U.S., Red Devil Inc., Iofina,Inc., RPX Technologies, Ten-Nine Technologies, LLC, American Airlines, Inc., Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance, and Cortado Capital LLC.

The Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology is a state agency tasked with leading Oklahoma’s technology-based economic development, supporting the efforts of start-ups and entrepreneurs to transform promising innovations from concepts into commercial products. Visit ocast.ok.gov to learn more.

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Last Modified on Mar 25, 2022
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