Information for Potential Business Partners

As a business partner, you will have access to the perspectives, creativity, insights, and technological know-how of a diverse team of college students who will for ten weeks focus their attention on a business challenge you are currently facing. Student interns, guided by a team of faculty coaches, will use design thinking to generate and propose innovative solutions to the problems associated with your business challenge. Our past participant states the benefit:

"Essentially, it's like free consulting services from local students and who wouldn't want to be a part of that?" - Elena Bolbolian, Chief Innovation Officer at the City of Glendale (Spring 2022 Business Partner)

Additionally, you'll have the opportunity to introduce students to your business and talk about career paths available within your industry. You may end up hiring one of the team interns in the future!

The lead faculty coach of the Team Internship Program will work with you to identify and summarize a business challenge that is appropriate for this format. The business challenge should be realistic and also broad enough so that interns have the opportunity to dive deeply into the challenge, discover additional problems associated with the challenge, and, ultimately, present to you potential solutions that you might actually use.

Click on the following link to see examples of business challenges from our past partners:

Examples of past business challenges

There is NO MONETARY COST to the business partner in the Team Internship Program. (Federal grants pay interns' hourly wages and coaches' salaries.) The business partner's responsibility is to assemble a small team of individuals from the business who will commit to the following:

1. Attend a one-hour planning meeting (virtually or in-person) with the faculty coaches before the program starts. At that meeting, the faculty coaches will answer any questions and will work with the business partner to finalize the business challenge.
2. Attend two sessions (3 hours each) on GCC's main Verdugo Campus at the beginning of the program in September.
   • At the first session, you will tell interns about your business, your industry, and career paths available in the industry. You will then introduce the business challenge.
   • At the second session, after teams of interns have spent time brainstorming to identify a set of problems associated with your business challenge, you will help the interns sort and rank the problem statements they have suggested.
3. Attend the final session (3 hours) in November at GCC's main Verdugo Campus, along with a panel of individuals from your business who are interested in hearing the students' innovative solutions. You will offer feedback to the students and rate each team's presentation, using a rubric provided by faculty coaches. Immediately following the presentations, you will be invited to a reception where you can interact with the interns one-on-one.