The Ohio Means Internships & Co-ops program in Central Ohio that is funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education is focused on providing students with work experiences in advanced manufacturing. The following two segments capture two OMIC programs from this autumn.

The first event you will hear is at an Engineering Career Fair offered at the co-located campuses of Central Ohio Technical College and OSU-Newark. The students were exposed to internship opportunities with area employers and received job-driven training on critical thinking and human relations skills. I interviewed student and industry participants as well as two administrators.

The second event was at the INNOVATE-O-thon developed by The Ohio State University Institute for Materials Research. For this particular externship program, student teams focused on a mobility challenge that will help shape DriveOhio’s technology strategy. The students identified value propositions and built business cases for deployment of autonomous vehicles at Ohio State’s campus. The winning team was interviewed, as well as IMR’s director.