PRESS RELEASE

CONTACT:
Carrie Rice
Marketing & Communications Director
(256) 535-2018 office
(256) 326-2018 cell
crice@hsvchamber.org

Huntsville, Alabama (September 8, 2016)—As part of its ongoing relationship with Bremen, Germany, the Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County is pleased to support a delegation of professors and project coordinators from Hochschule Bremen City University of Applied Sciences this week. The visit is designed to strengthen relationship with the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), as well as the Airbus and Mercedes Benz plants in Bremen and Alabama.

The goal of the visit it to establish a partnership network for internships for students in aerospace, mechatronics/automation and systems engineering.

“Bremen and Huntsville have a lot in common, economically and with regard to our workforce,” says Lucia Cape, senior vice president of economic development for the Chamber. “We have been building relationships with business, industry and academic partners for several years, and this internship program is an excellent example of what can happen when we explore these international opportunities.”

Hochschule Bremen’s already existing cooperation with Airbus and Mercedes and with UAH, as well as Bremen’s economic interest in this specific region, are the starting point for building contacts to the other relevant partners in Alabama. In the long term, this should result in a curricular-based and balanced internship exchange: Hochschule Bremen students having access to regular and reliable internship opportunities in Alabama, and in return, for UAH students to have comparable options for practical experience in Bremen. Andreas Heyer, CEO of Bremeninvest, believes that, “this cooperation presents a great opportunity for students to gain work experience while expanding the international talent pool companies are seeking.”

“We are willing to take applications home to match them with the Bremen industrial and institutional side,” says Heike Tauerschmidt, initiator of the project and director of the international office of Bremen City UAS. “We have already had a great experience aligning study projects and hands-on work at the Huntsville based RadioBro Corporation which runs a branch office in Bremen with a DAAD-scholar from UAH. This could be repeated on a similar scale working together with Bremen Industry Partners. If all goes well, we can exchange young potential interns on both sides from November this year to September next year.”

The project is carried out in collaboration with Bremeninvest, the international brand of the Bremen Economic Development Group, financially supported by the German “Stifterverband” (Donors’ Association for the Promotion of Humanities and Sciences in Germany). The project is supported by the Bremen State Authority for Economics, Bremeninvest, and the Bremen sites of Airbus DS and Mercedes Benz.

For more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/BremenPartnership

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