First Internet Bank, a premier provider of online retail and business banking services nationwide, today announced it will participate in a multi-year campaign to increase and enhance local student mentoring programs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
The Indianapolis pilot is part of a national initiative to generate large-scale, innovative solutions to the nation’s STEM education and workforce challenges through meaningful mentoring. The organization behind the project, US2020, seeks to match 1 million STEM volunteers and mentors with students by the year 2020. US2020 is specifically focused on increasing STEM opportunities and excitement for girls, underrepresented minorities, and children from low-income families.
Foreseeing a significant shortage of qualified applicants to fill projected job openings in STEM fields, the US2020 City Competition challenged cities to develop innovative models for dramatically increasing the number of STEM professionals mentoring and teaching students through hands-on projects, igniting the moments of discovery that have been shown to boost pursuit of STEM careers. Public/private coalitions from more than 50 cities across the nation applied. On May 27, 2014, US2020 named Indianapolis among the seven winning cities.
TechPoint Foundation for Youth, a venture philanthropy organization dedicated to growing student access to STEM programs, will serve as the city’s project manager for the Indianapolis plan. The pilot for Indianapolis’ six-year plan will launch in August 2014. In addition to First Internet Bank, other citywide founding partners include the City of Indianapolis, numerous schools and not-for-profit organizations, and corporations.
Said David Becker, President and CEO of First Internet Bank: “We see this partnership as an investment in the future. We have a responsibility to provide good corporate citizenship, and we believe this program specifically benefits this community in which we operate by better preparing our future workforce for the jobs that will be available.”
About First Internet Bank
First Internet Bank of Indiana opened for business in 1999 as the first state-chartered, FDIC-insured institution to operate solely via the Internet and has customers in all 50 states. Deposit services include checking accounts, regular and money market savings accounts with industry-leading interest rates, CDs and IRAs. First Internet Bank also offers consumer loans, conforming mortgages, jumbo mortgages, construction loans, home equity loans and lines of credit, commercial real estate loans, commercial and industrial loans, and asset-based lending. In the past year, First Internet Bank was also named one of the Best Banks to Work For by American Banker Magazine, a Top Workplace by The Indianapolis Star, and the top Online Originator by Mortgage Technology. For more information about the Bank, please visit https://www.firstib.com/. The bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of First Internet Bancorp (NASDAQ: INBK).
About First Internet Bancorp
First Internet Bancorp (NASDAQ: INBK) became the parent company of First Internet Bank of Indiana in 2006. For more information about the Bancorp, please visit http://www.firstinternetbancorp.com.
About US2020
US2020 is a new organization formed through a partnership of leading education non-profits and corporate leaders in the STEM field. The long-term goal of the initiative is to mobilize 1 million STEM mentors annually by the year 2020, creating millions of movements of discovery – those life changing events when children launch rockets, build robots, write a computer program, or look into the farthest reaches of the universe. US2020 relies on a committed and growing community of public, private, non-profit, and individual partners. US2020’s founding partners are Cisco, Cognizant, Raytheon, SanDisk, and Tata Consultancy Services, now joined by Chevron, with additional support coming from Discovery Communications, Fidelity Investments, HP, Salesforce, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. For more information about US2020, visit http://us2020.org.