2015: 108 students, 36 host companies, one awesome summer

The TechPoint team, as part of its Talent Attraction & Development Initiative, has spent the last 16 months building “the ultimate tech summer internship experience”, called the Xtern program. Over two summer internship sessions the Xtern program has recruited, housed, and immersed in the city 158 students from 22 universities and worked to build or strengthen summer internship programs across 37 companies in Central Indiana.

The 2015 class, with 108 Xterns, more than doubled the 50 person class from the prior summer. The Xterns come from 20 colleges and universities around the country, with graduation dates ranging from 2015 to 2018. They are working at 36 different host companies, including familiar Indy tech and tech-enabled employers like Apparatus, TinderBox, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eli Lilly and Company, Angie’s List, Interactive Intelligence and Lesson.ly.

The program recruits and places tech-­skilled students pursuing computer science and other tech degrees in paid internships. Xterns live together in apartments on the IUPUI campus.

TechPoint embarked upon the Xtern program with the vision of creating the ultimate tech internship experience.

Sally Reasoner

Sally ReasonerXterns changed their minds about Indy and plan to return in the future for tech careers.

“We wanted to provide college students with a one­-of-­a-kind educational experience,” said Sally Reasoner, TechPoint’s director of talent initiatives. “It has proven an effective talent attraction mechanism for Indianapolis and area tech companies.”

“An amazing result of the Xtern program was hearing how the students changed their opinions of Indianapolis,” Reasoner said.

Students were asked survey questions at the beginning and end of the summer: How positive is your impression of Indy? and How likely are you to choose a career in Indy after graduation?

At the beginning of summer only 22% of the Xterns said they had a positive impression of Indy. However, after participating in Xtern, that number increased to 98%. Furthermore, prior to Xtern only 12% cited being likely to choose a career in Indy after graduation, but after Xtern that number shot up to 78%. Even of those who reported being unlikely to choose a career in Indy after graduation, 93% said they would be interested in returning to Indy later in life.

Keep up with the Xtern initiative.