Vodafone has announced a new partnership that it hopes will help boost European paid internships and skills development.
The telecom giant’s philanthropic arm Vodafone Foundation will work with specialist web site Intern Avenue to match young people with employers across Europe.
The partnership follows an independent report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and commissioned by the Vodafone Institute which recommended that digital employment-matching services should be expanded across Europe.
It is hoped such services will help improve access to careers information and potential employers for a new generation of Europeans seeking to enter the workplace for the first time.
"The next generation in the European workplace was born digital and thinks mobile, with smartphones and apps at the centre of daily life. Finding the right work opportunity is tough. Intern Avenue can really make a difference, and we’re delighted to help them expand across Europe and into mobile," said Andrew Dunnett, director at Vodafone Group Foundation.
The Vodafone Foundation’s funding will be used to help Intern Avenue develop a mobile service to work alongside the organisation’s existing web-based tools.
Intern Avenue matches candidates with employers using a data-based scoring system. To date, around 2,000 employers and 40,000 intern applicants have registered with the service.
