At Accenture, we define stewardship as “building a heritage for future generations, acting with an owner mentality, developing people everywhere we are, and meeting our commitments to all internal and external stakeholders." Through the Accenture Education Program, Accenture in Manila brings this core value to life as Accenture professionals impart their knowledge and skills in IT to young Filipinos. Launched in January 2006, the Accenture Education Program is an internship program for college juniors and seniors, to equip students with requisite skills for a career in technology. Complementing the IT curriculum of participating schools, AEP designs a parallel elective program to broaden and intensify course offerings that reflect various technologies commonly used in business today, such as COBOL, .NET and JAVA. In January, the Accenture Education Program had its third series of programs at eight participating universities. With an expanded course offering that goes beyond the technical arena, students gained exposure to real-world application design and development, as well as receiving soft skills training in effective business writing and communications. The curriculum includes intense classroom training, hands-on programming exercises and project simulation. Under the Accenture Education Programs, students develop relevant, practical IT skills in line with the industry’s needs and to gain the benefit of having fast-track access through Accenture’s recruiting process. Participants who excel in the program are offered career opportunities in Accenture. “I learned a lot from the instructions and training,” Joseph Quinto, a graduate of the program says. “I recognized the skill of our mentors, especially in their respective fields and this inspired me to follow the same career path.” Today, as a Junior Software Engineer in Accenture's Solutions (Technology) workforce, Quinto is part of a global team of IT specialists, who pride themselves in finding new ways to help our clients become high-performance businesses by delivering innovation. The AEP reflects Accenture’s commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen. By providing students with valuable training and work experience in an IT industry, AEP hopes to help influence more students to take up IT courses as well as to address the industry’s need for an equipped and productive entry-level workforce, starting on their first day at work.