Tekniksprånget is generating more female engineers

Since 2012, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences has been running the internship program Tekniksprånget to get more young people to choose a higher technical education and a technical career. It has been a success - the numbers speak for themselves. Over 5,000 young people have practiced since the start and over 50 percent of these are young women. After the internship, almost everyone studies further within four semesters and 76 percent study higher technical education, where half are women.

"We are very proud that Tekniksprånget makes a noticeable difference. Something that feels extra good is that we reach a large proportion of young women, a target group that the technical colleges have had difficulty reaching," says Helena Gyrulf, operations manager at Tekniksprånget.

Lindholmen Science Park has, with good experience, offered internships through Tekniksprånget.

"Tekniksprånget creates good opportunities for young people to get interested in the area of technology. It has increased interest among young women and also among young people with disabilities, which is very positive," says Tord Hermansson, CEO of Lindholmen Science Park.

Several of the owners of Lindholmen Science Park are also involved in Tekniksprånget. Some of these are Volvo Group, Ericsson and AFRY.

"What we like about Tekniksprånget is that it has proven to give very good results around increasing the understanding and interest in the technology industry, because it means a lot to Sweden in terms of our future competitiveness and for our ability to grow, innovate, product develop, increase our export. And there we all have a responsibility," says Martin Lundstedt, CEO, Volvo Group.

Ericsson's CEO, Börje Ekholm agrees.

"We need to secure tomorrow's generation of engineers and hopefully we will succeed in showing how exciting and interesting it is so that everyone here can imagine a career in the field of information and technology."

For AFRY, it is an obvious choice to participate in Tekniksprånget.

"Sweden needs more engineers to meet future challenges. To inspire more young people to choose the engineering profession, we at AFRY want to invite Tekniksprånget-interns to us," says Jonas Gustavsson, CEO of AFRY.

A challenge that has increased in recent times is that Tekniksprånget has significantly more motivated young people applying for Tekniksprånget than the number of internships. The pandemic has widened this gap further. Youth unemployment is at a record high and many young people are struggling to find meaningful employment.

"It is more important than ever to take advantage of young people's curiosity about the role of en engineer. That is why we work hard to connect with more employers who want to get involved in the issue," says Helena Gyrulf.

The application for this autumn's round of Tekniksprånget opens on 16 April, and is expected to attract more applicants than ever before.

"This is an opportunity that I really hope that more and more employers take advantage of. We have good experiences ourselves and see it as an important part of our mission to contribute to an attractive and inclusive labor market," says Tord Hermansson.

Does your company want to get involved in Tekniksprånget or know more about it?​
Please contact Olle Wallin at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences/Tekniksprånget:
olle.wallin@iva.se
+46(0)720-701555