Bloom Energy in San Jose launches college internship program honoring late Secretary of State Colin Powell and to help diversify the tech workforce.As America's top colleges wrestle with creating a more even playing field, Silicon Valley is doing the same.A survey this summer from educational tech company Chegg shows that Facebook's top feeder schools for interns are: Stanford, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Waterloo in Canada and MIT.
Bloom Energy's founder and CEO, KR Sridhar, and Bloom summer intern, Nymul Islam, joined ABC7 News Anchor Kristen Sze on our weekday 3 pm. show "Getting Answers" on Tuesday to discuss this innovative internship program that aims to diversity the Silicon Valley workforce.In this first year of this pilot program, 11 students from the City College of New York were brought to Bloom's San Jose headquarters this summer to live and work as a cohort group.
Alongside other interns from leading universities, they learned skills in mechanical, electrical and manufacturing engineering, human resources, marketing, finance, legal, business and data analytics and information technology.Bloom Energy partnered with the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York, from which the late Secretary graduated in 1958.
"When I immigrated to the U.S. and found out they had constant 24/7 electricity, I was amazed by it." Islam says he had never left New York City before this internship, and this experience has opened the door to future career opportunities in Silicon Valley. Bloom Energy hopes to continue the program yearly and inspire other tech companies to expand its pipeline of diverse talent.