MentorNet Announces New Partnership with Texas Instruments to Advance Excellence in Engineering and Science, with a Special Focus on Texas

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- MentorNet is pleased to announce that Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has become a new Leadership Circle Level Partner to the organization, joining a list of companies that recognize the need to develop a technical and creative workforce. MentorNet is a Silicon Valley-headquartered nonprofit that links students and professionals in scientific and technical fields across the globe.

With TI's participation, MentorNet will be better positioned to achieve its strategic goals in 2006, including work toward its newly expanded outreach to organizations focused on diversity in scientific and technical fields. MentorNet's research-based, award-winning programs leverage technology to create and sustain mentoring relationships instrumental in completing academic preparation and initiating early professional development for fields where the numbers of women and people of color are still small. MentorNet, the E- mentoring Network for Diversity in Engineering and Science, relies on patent pending technology-based systems, involving email and the internet to support one-on-one mentoring relationships for thousands of students in engineering and science.

MentorNet's programs link undergraduate and graduate students at universities across the U.S. and in several other countries with professionals in industry, government and higher education. This work, conducted since 1998, has proven that productive mentoring can occur through email, and it serves as a leading model of best practices for mentoring.

"With the support of partners like TI, MentorNet has grown from serving 250 students at 15 universities in 1998 to since having reached more than 15,000 students from well over 100 colleges and universities," said Carol Muller, MentorNet's founder and chief executive officer. "This latest contribution will help power MentorNet's reach into the future, enabling us to enhance our capacity and extend our reach."

"Because engineering innovation is the foundation of the semiconductor industry, TI has a vested interest in building the engineering talent pool. One smart way to do that is by encouraging all populations, thereby enabling us to master the greatest levels of creativity and innovation and impact TI's bottom line. Mentoring is effective in student retention and is especially helpful to non-traditional engineering students," said Tegwin Pulley, vice president, Texas Instruments. Pulley says Texas Instruments will work through the Texas Engineering and Technical Consortium to encourage colleges and universities in Texas to take advantage of MentorNet's programs to enable their students to learn more about opportunities in industry.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com/ .

About MentorNet - http://www.mentornet.net/

MentorNet, headquartered in San Jose, California, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization working to further the progress of women and others underrepresented in scientific and technical fields through the use of a dynamic, technology-supported mentoring network. MentorNet aims to advance individuals and society, and enhance engineering and related sciences, by promoting a diversified, expanded and talented global workforce. In partnership with colleges and universities, corporations, government labs and agencies, and professional societies, MentorNet is international in scope, serving students and professionals from all over the world. MentorNet was recognized in 2001 with the (U.S.) Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. Major funding is provided by the National Science Foundation, Alcoa Foundation, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett Packard, Symantec Corporation, and Texas Instruments.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. HRD-0541853 and SBE-0549084. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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