Lebanese youth are the future leaders of Lebanon.  Their skills and their abilities are crucial to the long term prospects of the Lebanese economy.   The Partnership is working to plant the seeds of long term economic growth in Lebanon by teaming with businesses and educational organizations to provide Lebanese youth with the skills they need to compete in a 21st century market place.  Internships: The Partnership is placing qualified Lebanese interns in top businesses in the U.S., Lebanon, and around the globe.  The internships offer the opportunity for Lebanese youth to gain critical skills training, knowledge transfer, and real world experience. The first group of interns, with diverse backgrounds in engineering and business, has already arrived in the United States, and is working at top U.S. companies. Meet the interns!

The interns with Randy Pond, Executive Vice President of Operations, Processes and Systems, at Cisco Headquarters

Interns presenting to managers

They’ve also helped to bridge the gap between Lebanon and the United States, sharing their insight and culture with their hosts.  “It’s been wonderful hosting interns here at Cisco,” said Christina McGlew, intern manager. “They’ve done excellent work, added value to our business and they’ve also proven to be great friends and colleagues.  They’ve provided remarkable insight into Lebanon and the entire Mid-East region.  I think we’ve learned as much from them as they’ve learned from us.”  “This is an experience I’ll never forget,” said Karim Kattouf. “Having the chance to come to the United States and work side by side with professionals in top companies is just an unbelievable opportunity.  We’re learning things here that you would never learn in the classroom. When we head home we’ll take great memories with us but, just as important, we’ll take the skills we need to help transform our country into a better place to live and raise a family.” If you are interested in learning more about the Partnership for Lebanon's Internship Program, please download the fact sheet or email internship@partnershipforlebanon.org. Read the intern newsletter, Get Connected, here!

• Providing rich online learning resources for anytime, anywhere learning for both instructor professional development and for student hands-on learning.
• Linking academic learning to real-world job skills to help students graduate with the IT skills they need to become successful in today’s job market.

The overall goal of the IT Academies is to create a skilled workforce for employers so that applicants with the right technology education and skills are available in the workforce. To date, 2,000 students have been trained and 650 have been certified.

Networking Academies: Cisco’s Networking Academies, designed to give students the opportunity to gain real-world experience in an instructor-led environment, provide students with the skills to design build and maintain technology networks.  In addition to doubling the number of Networking Academies in Lebanon from 22 to 45, Cisco is hoping to increase the number of skilled IT graduates in the country. Furthermore, 2007 and 2008 Networking Academy graduates are being placed at the Council of Development and Re-construction (CDR) in Lebanon where they’ll be mentored on projects enabling them to utilize IT skills and gain hands on experience.

Since 1997, 2 million students in 11,000 academies and 160 countries have been impacted by Networking Academies. To further hone in on numbers, this also means:

• 35,000 instructors
• 50 million exams taken
• 200+ partnerships with governments and NGOs

Education: The Partnership has come together to assist the Lebanese government in developing sustainable models of K-12 education by drawing on the joined experiences and contacts of our members around the world.

Interns with John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco

Interns utilizing technology as an educational and collaborative tool

For questions or to find out how you can get involved, email workforcetraining@partnershipforlebanon.org. 

Contribute to the Workforce Training and Education work stream.