Internship at General Motors

Chris Hanson: Every year, General Motors invites top college students to intern in
their Design Center, where behind tight security the automaker
develops its future models. This year with reality series cameras
rolling and potential careers on the line, seven interns were given
the daunting task of designing personal transportation for the year
2030.

Matt Zoller: You could be going at 40 miles per hour but because you have a
screen, it could look like you’re going a 120. And because of the
feedback from the chair, it could look like you’re racing in Le
Mans

Ryan Patrick Joyce: In the future, we’ve hypothesized that all of our cars will be on a
grid system. Every car would have a GPS system which would
speak to all the other cars on the road. And when one car stops, the
owner knows.

Chris Hanson: GM lined up engineers to brief students on technologies that would
likely be available in 2030. Futurists were also brought into discuss
how society might look in 25 years.

John Owens: We learned about new materials, upcoming materials, technologies
that are being invented now. I mean it’s limitless. The amount is
cool, technological breakthroughs that are happening everyday.

Chris Hanson: The students aren’t the only winners. Leaders at GM view this
intern program as a reverse mentoring process.

Larry Burns: I think we ended up with a lot of a great ideas and it’s going to
help the business leaders of General Motors stretch their thinking
about how far we need to be pushing innovation into the future.

Chris Hanson: Look for the 2030 designs to emerge in a four-part series this
month on the Discovery Channel. I’m Chris Hanson.