Owensboro Innovation Academy student Alexander Neel has been selected to participate in the 2025-2027 Dataseam Registered IT Apprenticeship Program. Throughout this apprenticeship, he will receive a combination of on-the-job IT training throughout the school system, Related Technical Instruction, and industry standard training courses.
He will work directly with the Computer Maintenance Tech at OIA, Devin McKnight, to become familiar with how computers and their software work at a fundamental level and familiarize himself with various setup and configuration tasks. He will be working for one period a day during the school year and then continue his work over the summer with the Technology staff in the district.
"Since this is a multi-year internship, we're really excited to watch how Alexander's knowledge of all things technology will continue to grow," said Chief Academic Officer Chad Alward. "This is going to be a great opportunity for him as time goes on to learn more and more about a field he is interested in pursuing post-graduation."
Dataseam will provide Neel with an Apple Macbook Pro and external storage device for the duration of the program that he will be allowed to keep upon graduation. Dataseam is a research, education, and workforce development company that utilizes devices used daily by companies to run calculations for cancer research overnight when the devices aren't in use. They partner with the James Graham Brown Cancer Center to run calculations and data for cancer research in hopes of finding a cure.
"I don't know exactly what I want to do in the future, but I definitely know I want to do something in Computer Science or Engineering," said Neel. "This internship will definitely provide me with opportunities that will help narrow down what I want to do, so I'm really excited about it."
Neel is currently enrolled in the Engineering Pathway at OIA and he is one of the first to get a full time internship in the pathway he has chosen.