LEO Pharma are ready for more MIT students
The pharmaceutical company has collected additional data on chemical substances and expanded its innovation program in the US via two students from MIT. Danish companies are poised to more American interns, says the Head of DI Global Talent.
In June, 21 American students started their internships in Denmark. The youngsters came from the prestigious university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and were to spend their summer at Danish companies and universities.
Two of them—Kayala Vodehnal and Hayden Niederreiter—clocked in with the pharmaceutical company LEO Pharma in Ballerup, Denmark.
Here they were going to work on collecting data for comparison between chemical substances and expanding the company's Open Innovation Program in the US.
- I think LEO Pharma is incredibly interesting because as a medium-sized pharmaceutical company, it strives to both compete with the largest in the industry and has a patient-centred approach to education and research, says Hayden Niederreiter.
Please send more students
The pharmaceutical company is one of the first participants in the MIT-DK cooperation and it has been a good experience, says LEO Pharma’s Morten Maegaard, Director, Strategic HR Business Partnering R&D.
We already cooperate with MIT and other universities in Boston which is a hub for innovation within pharma and technology cooperation—including our LEO Science & Tech Hub in Boston. LEO Pharma’s Morten Maegaard, Director, Strategic HR Business Partnering R&D
And adds that the pharmaceutical company is ready to welcome more MIT students in the future
- The two youngsters have just left, so we will now spend the next coming months evaluating the cooperation and the benefits. But we are immediately interested in continuing the cooperation in the coming years, because we would like to further strengthen the cooperation between industry and educational institutions—also internationally, says LEO Pharma’s Director, Strategic HR Business Partnering R&D.
Overwhelming interest—from both sides
Head of DI Global Talent, Linda Duncan Wendelboe, says that the MIT-Denmark program—established with support from the Danish Industry Foundation—has got off to a good start.
There has been a great, mutual interest from the Danish companies and the students at MIT. The original goal was to get 10 MIT students a year, but 21 have already been here over the summer and in the autumn another 6 students will come.
- The participating companies have reported that the American students have proven to be extremely talented and actionable—to an extent where it has been necessary to increase the complexity of the tasks the students were assigned to solve, in several cases, says Linda Duncan Wendelboe.
She encourages companies who are interested to contact DI Global Talent, so that they can gain new knowledge and skills MIT students bring. But to also see the networking and recruitment potential of the cooperation.
- The participating Danish companies have also established a network at one of the world's leading technical universities. This can prove to be very useful when they are looking for new employees in the future, says the Head of DI Global Talent.
The MIT-Denmark program has become so popular that it has been given additional resources and now also includes Danish universities.
FACTS
The MIT-Denmark Programme:
· Established with support from the Danish Industry Fund.
· 21 students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have internships in Denmark during the summer of 2019. 15 of them are have internships at 12 different companies, while 6 have been matched with Danish universities (KU, DTU and SDU).
· In addition to the 21 MIT students who are in internships during the summer, there will be an additional 6 MIT students in internships this fall. The initial goal was to get 10 students on internships at Danish companies every year.
· Furthermore, delegations with a total of 23 Danish companies visited MIT during the program's first year.
· For more information about the program and how you as a company can participate, please contact Virginie Morlet at vimo@di.dk or by calling +45 33 77 31 67.
