Passion, leadership, and service, how we mentor the next generation

[Pledge 1]

By Michael McNeil, Partner and General Manager, Oasis Digital

When we started our high school summer internship program in 2011, we had two simple goals. We felt we could simultaneously provide great personal value to budding software developers, while building future leaders in our industry. What we have found over the years is the impact is far larger. We have been amazed at the footprint of our program in technology education, the software industry (as past interns spread out to companies like Intel, Facebook, Garmin, and other giants), and the St. Louis Area non-profit community.

The program involves a competitive application process. We often get many times the number of qualified applicants that we can hire. We are looking for candidates with a real love for writing software. From varied socio-economic, race, and gender backgrounds, we do not only look at who is the best, but who is passionate. A key criteria is whether they build websites and write applications avocationally as well as in their studies.

Hiring passionate interns has another important outcome: these individuals are very interested in helping others. For the last two years our interns have worked under the supervision of our professional development team to build complex applications for two local non-profits, Oasis International and the Saint Louis Science Center.

Oasis International is an organization that helps refugees from all over the world get established in the St. Louis area. They provide food, furniture, English classes, training, and mentoring to immigrant families. Interns have built and are supporting an application being used to record items from donors, track stock to match items with needs, and schedule deliveries to refugee families. The software creates reporting needed by Oasis International to account to government and private grant sources.

Working on projects such as these, we teach the interns skills that will be of value for the rest of their careers. Understanding needs and translating those into action for a team is high on the list. They learn to motivate each other, meet deadlines, and deliver value. Our interns regularly head to college and immediately take on leadership roles at their schools.

We have been very excited to find Pledge 1%. The philosophy of giving back to the community and adding value aligns very well with ours. We are very pleased to formally join the program and look forward to encouraging others to do so as well. Being a part of this organization helps keep priorities in focus and adds a level of accountability.

At the end of each summer we have a presentation night for the interns. They get to invite family, teachers, and other important people in their lives. Our entire staff attends, with a great deal of pride in the investment they have placed in these young people. The students discuss lessons learned and challenges overcome while demonstrating the results of their software development efforts. I was very pleased this year that a major component of the presentation was the comradery and teamwork they had learned. These high school interns readily admitted they had previously worked alone on projects, but now understood the power of a team. That kind of growth is priceless and worth celebrating.

To learn more and to see this program in action, click here to watch the video.

Originally posted: November 29, 2016