5 May 2022 (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia) – Thirty-five university and college students from across Canada are set to gain valuable ocean technology experience and insight through the 2022 COVE Internship Program. The sixteen-week internship program provides a unique opportunity for students to engage in relevant and challenging project-based work-integrated learning while receiving mentorship from industry leaders.

The interns are completing, or have completed, their studies at Dalhousie University, Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU ), University of British Columbia (UBC), Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), Saint Mary’s University (SMU), Saint Francis Xavier University (STFX), Memorial University (MUN), University of Waterloo, and Harvard University. Their backgrounds range from commerce/finance, public relations, computer science, industrial and mechanical engineering, and ocean sciences.

“The immense interest we’ve received from students across Canada in finding careers in the ocean sector is impressive. Our internship program supports the growth of the blue economy with a skilled workforce, and we are pleased to see the interns working at globally leading ocean-based companies that are part of COVE’s ecosystem. ” – Melanie Nadeau, Chief Executive Officer at COVE

“Labour, Skills and Immigration is proud to support COVE’s internship program, which helps shine a spotlight on the ocean sector in Nova Scotia. The program focuses on providing valuable work experience to post-secondary students from various educational and diverse backgrounds to an important, growing industry. It also helps Nova Scotian employers identify future talent to grow their businesses, which is vital to retaining young Nova Scotians, and growing our population and workforce.” – Jill Balser, Minister of Labour, Skills and Immigration

“The COVE internship initiative plays an extremely important role in engaging post-secondary students with ocean technology and ocean-tech companies in meaningful work-integrated learning experiences.  This program is helping create our next generation of ocean-tech talent and, importantly, helping us retain talent in our region by allowing these students to build enduring relationships with industry partners.  ICTC is a proud supporter of the COVE internship initiative through our WIL Digital student wage subsidy program that is funded by the Government of Canada.” – Tim Perron, Atlantic Regional Coordinator at ICTC

“The Students on Ice Foundation is proud to support an expanded cohort of COVE’s Internship Program through our Blue Futures Pathways program and funding from Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. For the second year, our partnership will connect diverse youth from various disciplines with the Sustainable Blue Economy, preparing them for the jobs and careers of the future and helping industry fill key gaps in the labour market.” – Geoff Green, C.M., Founder & President of the Students on Ice Foundation. 

“I am an extremely ambitious person with a passion for learning. Upon finding this program, I saw this as an amazing opportunity to greatly develop and challenge myself. This program offers me experience that I would struggle to find anywhere else at this stage of my career. In addition to the personal and career opportunity this offers, I was already extremely interested in the ocean sector and had attempted to land positions through certain connections with no luck. This program allows me to get my foot in the door and experience for myself working in a sector in which I was already quite interested in.” – Ryan Guzzwell, COVE Internship participant