Advancing San Diego

Advancing San Diego (ASD) is a collaborative effort comprised of industry and education partners that works to better prepare San Diegans for well-paying, high-quality jobs at San Diego companies. Technological advancements are rapidly transforming work as we know it, and in order to remain competitive, companies will require a qualified, local talent pool. ASD has built a network of locally-serving education programs and connects companies to students of those programs, including fully-subsidized internships for small companies. To date, ASD has placed 130 interns with 95 businesses across Software, Engineering, Business, Manufacturing, Health Care, and Life Science industries. Of the total number of interns, 82% were first generation community college students or high school students in low-income areas. Ultimately, ASD has proven to make local students and companies more competitive within a wide range of business sectors while also supporting small businesses. United, we are redefining who gets access to training, internship experience, and connections to local companies which result in quality job opportunities.

PARTNERS: San Diego Economic Development Corporation, San Diego Workforce Partnership, City of San Diego, San DiegoImperial County Community College Association

“ASD’s Internship Program aided us in finding local talent in the areas of software engineering and business research. From the company perspective, we believe in giving back to the community and in providing those first training and work opportunities to local students, and we couldn’t be happier with the human and technical capabilities of our current and past interns. Our interns have made us a better company by bringing new voices and experiences to solve our technical challenges.”

— Carlos Gaitan, CEO and Co-Founder at Benchmark Labs