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Foundations of the Future: IPC's Generous Support to Upskill Students

The electronics industry faces the challenge of attracting talent. The IPC Education Foundation (IPCEF) aims to help solve this challenge by increasing awareness of the industry and equipping students with valuable industry-standard education to better prepare motivated students for careers in electronics.

Through a new initiative, the Foundation may be able to address the following industry needs:

• Lack of awareness of the careers and skills needed
• Shortage of qualified technical candidates due to not enough skilled younger workers entering the electronics industry
• An aging workforce
• Lack of job preparedness as many schools are not teaching the students the right curriculum related to industry and career readiness 

IPC’s Generous Support
We are excited to bring relevant content to students in high school and college with the generous support from IPC. Starting this year, and for a limited time only, IPC is sponsoring access to several library packages of technical education. To see if your institution qualifies for a free semester, visit the video training library on the IPC website.

Overview of IPC Video Subscription Libraries
The educational content will allow students to advance their current knowledge about the industry and at the same time get better prepared for entering the workforce. Students will be able to view a variety of videos on topics that include electronic assembly, soldering, ESD, and wire assembly as well as introductory courses, receive a badge upon completion, and access it online. 

Some high schools/technical community colleges are looking for a focused set of videos and therefore we have created a range of “mini” libraries for this purpose. Each mini-library contains a pre-selected suite of videos on a designated topic around electronics assembly inspection, ESD fundamentals, hand soldering and rework – PTH and SMT, intro to electronics assembly (pre-employment training, intro to wire assembly, etc.

To view the range of videos available, visit the IPCEF Video Library Course Catalog. Usually access to these libraries require an annual subscription.

There are additional videos available which are packaged in the “full” library.  the “full” library contains 78 industry-developed training videos for the electronics manufacturing and assembly industry. A complete library of operator-level training videos that provide the foundational knowledge required for ESD (electrostatic discharge) control, hand soldering, IPC-A-610 Acceptance Criteria, rework & repair, components, cable & wire assembly. If you are interested to learn more, please reach out to us.

How do I get this to my high school or college students?
We will be reaching out to high schools, preferably vocational high schools, as well as technical community colleges and universities during the summer to participate in this new program. Through this effort we believe that we’ll be able to empower teachers to keep students engaged and at the same time upskill their knowledge around the electronics manufacturing industry. Online education has shown to be extremely valuable, especially during the pandemic, and this is an effective way to support existing course content or classroom curriculum.

For more information, please contact me at charlenegunter@ipc.org or complete the interest form by clicking here.

Charlene?Gunter du Plessis is the senior director of the IPC Education Foundation.