GroupMe co-founder Steve Martocci,Gilt Groupe’s Vice President of Quality Engineering Kevin Haggard, Onswipe CEO Jason Baptiste, former CTO of the White House Aneesh Chopra and musician Jon Bon Jovi  recently announced the launch of SummerQAmp, a first-of its kind nationwide initiative led by the tech community to train American youth in high-tech skills like QA.

SummerQAmp was inspired and developed as a commitment to the White House’s Summer Jobs+ initiative, a call to action for businesses, non-profits and government to work together to provide pathways to employment for low-income and disconnected youth this summer. SummerQAmp has set a goal of creating 1,000 QA internships this summer and already has received 100+ commitments from companies like GroupMe, Gilt Groupe, eBay, Boxee and Onswipe.

The Association for Software Testing (AST) has partnered with SummerQAmp to help develop the educational curriculum that will be used to teach the participating interns the fundamentals of software testing. We’re excited about SummerQAmp as it gives us the opportunity to reach a new generation of testers and get them started off on the right foot.

If your company is interested in joining the initiative, the next step is to make a formal commitment to take on a specific number of QA interns this summer. The organizers of SummerQAmp are asking companies to make their commitments within the next week or so (approx. April 15th) to ensure there is enough time to get the positions filled for this summer. We encourage you to make your commitment now and let us know how many interns you’re willing to employ by filling out this quick form. You will then receive instructions on how to post and tag your internships in the White House’s Summer Jobs+ database.

Create your commitment here

AST’s Call for Participation