MentorNet names a new CEO

In July 2008 David Porush joined MentorNet as president and CEO. He assumes the duties of the nonprofit’s founder and past president Carol Muller, who decided to step down after ten years at the head of the organization.

Porush is enthusiastic about MentorNet’s mission. “MentorNet addresses one of the crucial needs in the global economy: identifying and guiding more women and minorities into engineering and science. Everyone who has studied the problem agrees that mentoring is crucial,” he declares.

“Data show that even now, decades after we started paying attention to the problem, women and underrepresented minorities enter the field in lower numbers and lag behind white men in completion of their degrees in engineering and science.”

Making the most of technology
MentorNet is an e-mentoring network for engineering and science students, designed to further the progress of women and other groups underrepresented in scientific and technical fields. The organization uses a patent-pending algorithm for matching proteges with mentors. “It’s similar to the technology that spurred the growth of Facebook and LinkedIn,” Porush says. “It lets people with common interests find, inform, share knowledge with and help each other.”

The dynamic Web-based system currently matches proteges at 115 colleges and universities with professionals in more than forty corporations, government labs and professional organizations.

Porush’s background makes him a good fit for the organization. He has spent much of his career exploring how the Web can enhance education and build relationships around knowledge sharing. In fact, Porush points out, MentorNet as conceived and built by Muller a decade ago was a Web 2.0 project even before the label existed.

Increasing corporate support
An Intel mentor, right, with her protege from the University of Pennsylvania.

An Intel mentor, right, with her protege from the University of Pennsylvania.

Porush is eager to increase the list of corporations that partner with MentorNet. He notes that MentorNet is an effective and valuable recruiting tool. “Our corporate partners use MentorNet to identify talent, cultivate relationships with students, guide them to careers and then bring them into the company,” he says. A majority of proteges apply for full-time jobs at the mentor companies.

Porush also hopes to integrate MentorNet’s technology and Web experience with other social networking sites. The company has a kiosk on the 3D virtual world Second Life, and has groups on the LinkedIn and Facebook networks. It can also deliver mentors’ messages to proteges on their mobile devices.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes that mentoring cultivates interest and helps build relationships that lead to professional fulfillment. It recently awarded MentorNet a $150,000 grant to bring the MentorNet model and method to the geosciences. “This will allow us to reach out to a very specific area. A growing number of women and minorities are entering the field,” Porush says.

The best guide
Porush predicts that within two years MentorNet will be recognized as the best way to guide women and minorities in launching their science and engineering careers. “There is a proper way to be a mentor and a proper way to be a protege,” he says. “MentorNet knows how it’s done: thoughtfully and successfully. Now the challenge is to get our tools into the hands of those who can benefit from the program, both proteges and mentors, by working with more campuses and corporate partners.”