St. Louis area firms urged to create internships for international STEM students

An internship program for foreign STEM students at St. Louis area universities is the latest initiative in an ongoing effort to draw more immigrants into the metro workforce to boost the local economy and population.

The St. Louis Mosaic Project is trying to get 10 companies in St. Louis and 10 in St. Louis County to provide paid internships next summer for international students in fields related to science, technology, engineering and math.

Organizers hope that the internships might lead to permanent jobs here after graduation.

Tim Nowak, executive director of the World Trade Center St. Louis, said more than half of the 10,000 international students at 16 schools in the region are enrolled in STEM fields.

"These disciplines also happen to represent some of our greatest workforce needs," Nowak said, whose organization sponsors the Mosaic effort. "Our opportunity is to keep more of them employed and living right here."

Nowak announced the International Student Internship Challenge Wednesday at the trade center's 25th Growing Global luncheon. About 750 people attended the event, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Clayton.

Nowak said two architectural firms are the first companies to sign up to provide internships - Tao and Lee Associates Inc. and Trivers.

Among other speakers was Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis Inc., a major business group. He reiterated his view that attracting people from other nations to move here is a key to turning around the region's stagnant population numbers.

"The harsh reality is over the last 20 years, our population has largely been flat," Hall said. "There is only one short-term lever to move the population numbers quickly and that is a laser focus on immigrants and refugees."

Hall talked up recently-released census data showing the metro area adding more than 30,000 foreign-born residents from 2022 through 2023. The roughly 23% increase year to year was the highest percentage hike among the nation's top 30 metro areas.

He also cited recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing the metro area's job growth from mid-2023 to mid-2024 was the seventh fastest among the 50 largest metro areas. And he touted the region's 16th-place ranking in a study of growth in GDP adjusted for inflation in 2022.

"We've got to stay the course," Hall said. "We need 10 years of what we just experienced this year."

Hall was part of a panel discussion with Jon Baselice, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official, and Andrea Faccio, a Brazilian native who is the St. Louis-based president and chief growth officer for Nestlé Purina North America.

Baselice, the chamber's vice president for immigration policy and a former aide to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Congress needs to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

Among other things, he said it's time to get serious about securing the border with Mexico and changing the asylum system to get faster decisions on who gets such status.

The event also included a prerecorded video interview with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who grew up in the St. Louis area.

He said the United States should take steps to make it easier to bring talented entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists from other countries to start companies.

Honored at the event were five foreign-born winners of Global Ambassador awards. They are Yemi Akande-Bartsch from Nigeria, the president and CEO of FOCUS St. Louis; Hadi Alhorr from Lebanon, director of the Boeing Institute of International Business at St. Louis University; Marie-Hélène Bernard from Canada, president and CEO of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Luz Irina Calderón Villalobos from Colombia, scientific affairs manager for the Americas and China for KWS Gateway Research; and Sekhar Prabhakar from India, CEO and founder of CEdge Inc.

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