Attracting and retaining skilled people to the diary sector is crucial to maintaining the development of dairy manufacturer’s engineering and other capabilities. This skill gap has been identified as an impediment to the future productivity and competitiveness of the industry.
Gardiner Foundation has taken a proactive approach to overcome this challenge by investing in the Monash University Team Initiative (MITI). This program forms part of Gardiner Foundation’s commitment to strengthen dairy communities, through our People Development portfolio.
The initiative places small multi-disciplinary teams of students with a dairy manufacturer to solve a specific company challenge over a 12 week period, during the university summer break.
MITI offers a unique opportunity for participating industry manufacturers to put forward a specific challenge in commercial confidence. Monash University and the manufacturer decide on a multi-disciplinary team of students at differing stages in their studies, who are embedded into the company and try to find a solution to this real world challenge.
Since it began in 2014, over 200 students have been exposed to the dairy industry through this well regarded program. These students have gained invaluable exposure to relevant learning opportunities that relate specifically to their studies while at the same time, acquiring hands-on practical experience.
To be eligible to apply, students must:
- Be an Australian or New Zealand citizen, holder of an Australian permanent resident or permanent humanitarian visa, or an international student.
- Be enrolled as a full-time Monash student completing an undergraduate degree and have commenced their penultimate year of study (you must be currently studying in at least your second year of a three year undergraduate degree. If completing a four year undergraduate degree, then your third year is your penultimate year).
OR
- Be enrolled as a full-time Monash student completing a postgraduate qualification (coursework or research) at Masters or PhD level
Students can find out more about MITI here
Students can also join the Job Alert System where you will hear from Gardiner Foundation from time to time about job openings in dairy manufacturing companies, MITI alumni opportunities and other programs run by Gardiner which may be of interest. Click here to sign up to this email list.
Interested dairy product manufacturing projects must:
- Align to a course of study at Monash.
- Be deemed by the organisers to provide sufficient challenges to the students aligned with their course of study.
- Have the capacity to provide a fully supervised project experience for the students.
- Be a project that does not create or promote a direct commercial benefit to the company in relation to its products or services.
Processors can find our more about MITI here or contact Gardiner Foundation directly.