07/30/2009 Workshop of the second GEIP generation in Frankfurt

Continental chose Frankfurt am Main as the location for this year’s workshop of its Global Engineering Internship Program (GEIP). The workshop, being part of the second international GEIP year, was extremely successful. The 16 students from five different nations who took part in the event met representatives of the GEIP partner universities and of Continental.

The workshop also was this year’s GEIP highlight. The program is aimed at fostering a more international approach to the training of engineers and scientists. Students are given the opportunity to gain experience in international project work even before their graduation. Additional parts of the GEIP are an academic program and a several month internship at one of the worldwide locations.  

 “In today’s working environment, we are searching for engineers who have a global expertise. The GEIP is Continental’s contribution to an international, very practice oriented apprenticeship”, says Bärbel Henghuber, Corporate Employer Branding & Recruiting, who is responsible for the GEIP.

In addition to training the participants’ intercultural competence, the agenda for the workshop focused on topics such as the significance of internationally linking R&D activities with the production. Special highlights were interview sessions with Senior Vice President Rainer Hetzer and Executive Board Member Heinz-Gerhard Wente, who was very enthusiastic about the GEIP: “GEIP is a highly attractive and cogently complements our training line-up at Continental. Above all, it offers the interns coming out of it a host of valuable opportunities for starting a professional career in an international environment and the company the possibility to early get in contact with very good students”, Wente says.

With the GEIP, Continental has already started to implement the recommendations of the “Global Engineering Excellence” Study (GEE), the internationally oriented education for engineers, in 2008. For the ambitious “Global Engineering Excellence” project, Continental was able to win over eight renowned universities in 2005. They study the perspectives and social position of engineers as well as their education and impact on the performance capabilities of economies, and consequently draw conclusions from these findings.

Continental Wins Georgia Tech Prize

Continental has once again been cited for its international university project “Global Engineering Excellence” (GEE). The Georgia Institute of Technology has honored the project with its Work Abroad Employer of the Year Award in Atlanta (USA). Previously in the USA, the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) had also conferred a prize on GEE. With the integration of RWTH Aachen and Tokyo Institute of Technology into the GEE network, Continental AG has been able to win two additional world-renowned universities for the initiative.

“For us, the GEE study revealed the need to take action in science, the economy, and politics in internationalizing the engineering sciences. That our commitment has now received a second international prize shows us that we are on the right track,” said Stefan Kraft, head of Human Resources Development and Employer Branding & Recruiting at the Continental Corporation. In September 2008 he was already honored by the NSEE with the 2008 NSEE Corporate Leader of the Year Award for his outstanding commitment to intercultural work in the Global Engineering Internship Program (GEIP).

In 2005 Continental was able to win over eight renowned universities for GEE to study the perspectives and social position of engineers as well as their education and impact on the performance capabilities of economies, and to draw conclusions from these findings. This gave rise to the GEE study, which showed that university curricula have to reflect developments in a globally networked economy.

Continental AG took the first step to implement the study's recommendations last year. In the international technology corporation’s GEIP in 2008, 19 students from seven nations worked with top-notch Continental employees, as well as representatives of the GEIP universities, on internationally focused projects. GEIP will be further intensified in 2009.