After an impressive six-week internship, Elizabeth College student, Kieran Aslett, has been awarded a bursary by his JT mentors. This helping hand towards his study costs is in recognition of his genuine interest in digital technology and the bright future that lies ahead of him.
Kieran joined JT having applied successfully for the Digital Greenhouse Discover Digital Summer Internship which JT has supported for the past three years. He spent six weeks working with a number of the company’s departments.
Andy Holmes, JT’s Talent Programme Manager said: “As a business we believe it is really important for us to play a part in nurturing young talent. Committed and interested young people like Kieran represent the future of digital technology and we are privileged to have had the opportunity to share our knowledge with him and are really pleased that we can contribute to resources which will help him take those first steps in his career.”
JT offers several bursaries each year to young people in the Channel Islands in areas of study including science, technology, engineering, maths and some business disciplines and over the last five years has financially supported 32 young people in Guernsey and Jersey. During the summer months of 2019, 15 bursary students have benefited from fully paid work within various departments across the company and, to date, four students have returned to work with JT on a permanent basis. 40% of local students supported by JT’s bursaries over the past five years have returned to the islands to live and work in the technology sector.
Kieran said that the internship gave him a good insight into the collaborative working between departments. “It was surprising to me how much interaction there was between departments like sales and engineering. The reality is that they share information all the time to come to a solution together, looking at design and analysing the information before tackling an issue.”
Kieran, who has plans to study cyber security in higher education, said that he had an interest in networking and so particularly enjoyed working with CISCO engineering while at JT but had found the mentoring in all the teams especially beneficial.
“It was never just about me sitting and watching what was going on, that’s not the JT way. The mentoring was fantastic, and I was given the chance to do real work, take part and ask questions. It was an exciting opportunity and worked very naturally. The bursary announcement came as a complete surprise on my second to last day – I hadn’t expected that at all but it’s great news. It’s so nice to know that the team at JT value my contribution,” said Kieran.
Paul Taylor, Managing Director, JT Guernsey said: “Kieran worked really well with each team he joined during his internship; it was a pleasure to introduce him to our industry. We hope that the JT Bursary will ensure that he is able to make the most out of what a university degree has to offer him and, one day, bring those skills back to Guernsey and JT.”
The Discover Digital Summer Internship is open to all post-16 students, in full-time education, who have a passion for digital and a desire to work on digital projects with some of the Guernsey’s leading companies.
