Five Ōtūmoetai College students took part in the first ever DayBreak internship over March and April 2024, which included helping to capture photos of the event, and then providing recommendations to Priority One about future initiatives.

The internship is a new initiative by Ōtūmoetai College, led by Stacey Shefferd, Head of Careers and Pathways. The goal was to give students some real-world experience in a work environment, with local businesses, and Chael Campbell, Harleen Bains, Wesley Newland, Kobi Notman and Jazmin Hawan, all year 13 students’ at Otumoetai College, were part of the Priority One team for two days.

“We are always keen to help our schools in this space, and this seemed like a great idea when Otumoetai approached us,” says Shane Stuart, Innovation Manager for Priority One. “We immediately thought of DayBreak Innovation Summit as the perfect opportunity.”

The DayBreak Innovation Summit, part of a broader Festival of Innovation, was a conference style event that took place on March 7 and 8 2024.

The DayBreak internship involved two parts: Firstly, helping out during the Summit, especially with photography. The team were positioned all around the city centre, taking photos of the various workshops and panel sessions, to share back to Priority One. This often also meant taking part in the actual workshops! Secondly, acting as consultants for Priority One, recommending how we could engage senior secondary students like them in future iterations of DayBreak. To do this, they undertook a design thinking ‘sprint’ – talking to their peers, developing insights, creating and testing concepts and then finally coming up with recommendations they fed back to Priority One.

“The internships were a great success from our perspective,” says Shane, “we loved having the team involved, and they came up with some great ideas for future years for DayBreak.”

The Interns too were very positive about their experience.

“At the daybreak festival I really enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the business world and capturing content of the day.”  Chaeli Campbell

“Thank you so much for hosting our interns over the Daybreak Festival of Innovation – I have already had feedback and they loved it.  They all said they felt incredibly supported and cared for.  They met lots of people, heard new things, and learnt so much.”  Stacey Shefferd, Head of Careers & Pathways Otumoetai College.