Help us welcome our spring interns, Kira Olson and Amy Engle

The Silicon Prairie News team grew by two last week as we welcomed aboard our spring interns, Kira Olson and Amy Engle. Kira, our event intern, and Amy, our content intern, have hit the ground running, already diving into work on our upcoming Omaha Startup Job Crawl and our evolving Silicon Prairie Map, respectively. Up…

The Silicon Prairie News team grew by two last week as we welcomed aboard our spring interns, Kira Olson (left) and Amy Engle (right).

Kira, our event intern, and Amy, our content intern, have hit the ground running, already diving into work on our upcoming Omaha Startup Job Crawl and our evolving Silicon Prairie Map, respectively. Up until the last day of Big Omaha on May 11, each will spend about 20 hours per week in our Omaha office.

After publishing our call for interns in November, we had dozens of talented and motivated students knocking on our door. It wasn’t an easy choice to narrow it down to just two – especially since we have work for a staff of 10 interns – but Kira and Amy stood about above the rest for their enthusiasm of our mission, relevant experience to their positions and excitement for their future responsibilities.

Brittany Mascio, our event coordinator, will be working with Kira on events and I’ll be working with Amy on content, so without further ado, each of us will introduce our interns.

Meet Kira 

In our intern opportunity post, I mentioned we were looking for an intern who has a “knack for event planning, kissing babies and making dreams come true.” I’m not so sure about the babies part, but two of the three were a good fit for Kira.

A Berthoud, Co. native, Kira is a senior at Creighton University double majoring in public relations and health administration and policy with a minor in business administration. This past summer, Kira participated in the university’s five-week backpack studies class where she traveled to Uganda, shot and edited video for the documentary, Mato Oput (left), and wrote feature stories and blog posts based on her experience.

Her community-oriented frame of mind aligns spot-on with our mentality at Silicon Prairie News and she said it best in her interview when she said she wanted to be here to help build greatness in our region. Kira has had her hand in planning career fairs and professional etiquette dinners with the Creighton Career Center, experiences that seemed pretty fitting as we will work together on two Startup Job Crawls this semester, including our Omaha Startup Job Crawl on Feb. 15. Her background in event planning extends beyond her experience on campus as seen through her work coordinating managers conferences with her position with Rehab Visions, something that will come in handy when we tackle the nuts and bolts of Big Omaha.

As a peer of mine, I had the opportunity to see Kira in her role as a student and a campus leader, now I’ll have the opportunity to work beside her as we plan Big Omaha, Startup Job Crawls and Silicon Prairie News meetups

Learn more about Kira on her bio page, and help up welcome her to the team on Twitter, @kira_olson, or in the comments below.

Meet Amy

If you attended Barcamp Omaha in September, you might have already met Amy as she and few of her fellow Creighton classmates attended. That’s where I met her, and it wasn’t more than 15 minutes later that we had opened up our laptops and were looking at Creighton’s student newspaper, talking through ideas to enhance its website throughout the semester. Amy’s excitement for online media was instantly evident.

In my role as an advisor to Creighton’s student newspaper, I had the chance to work with Amy for a few months, seeing first-hand her hard work and commitment to consistent and quality content. At Silicon Prairie News, she’ll be joining a team with a mission to do the same.

A St. Louis, Mo. native, Amy is a senior at Creighton with plans to graduate in May with a double major in digital new media and graphic design. Last year at this time, she was working as an intern in Washington, D.C., where she did more than office work and sightseeing, she also did a bit of bakery exploration, documenting her “pursuit of extraordinary cupcakes” on her blog “Crazy about Cupcakes.”

At Silicon Prairie News, Amy will be in charge of updating and enhancing the Silicon Prairie Map, organizing our sprawling video archives and finding ways to better display our ever-increasing volume of content. And of course, she’ll be authoring some of our content, as well.

Learn more about Amy on her bio page, and help up welcome her to the team on Twitter, @amyengle, or in the comments below.

 

Image credits: Photos of Kira Olson and Amy Engle courtesy of Olson and Engle. Image of Mato Oput from creigthon.edu. Screenshot from crazyaboutcupcakes.wordpress.com.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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