High schoolers aren’t who most people would expect to find working on robotics solutions for the likes of Siemens, Samsung and IBM.

But that’s exactly what is set to happen thanks to a partnership between Lexington County School District 1 and the University of South Carolina’s Office of Economic Engagement. The dual enrollment program, which the two parties hope to launch next school year, will allow students at the Lexington Technology Center to take an introductory engineering course that lets them work with a digital robotics simulator and help solve problems brought to USC by the office’s corporate partners.

Chad Hardaway, associate director of the office of economic engagement, announced the partnership at the district’s Dec. 14 school board meeting. He explained that the COVID-19 pandemic helped throw into focus the need to not just use the office’s facilities — including a digital transformation lab and technology incubator — to help companies innovate, but to put a greater focus on engaging undergraduate and pre-college students.

“What we found after COVID is that this environment we created to solve these industry problems is also a very fertile breeding ground for training not only undergrads, but potentially our high school students and exposing them to real world industry problems,” Hardaway said.

Utilizing digital twinning technology provided by Siemens, the students will be able to work with simulated robots to learn what Hardaway assured would be valuable skills.

“They’re going to know how to manipulate robots,” he said. “Any industrial partner in our state, you go talk to them, these are coveted skill sets. These are skill sets that are relevant. These are skill sets that they’re looking for. And so our goal is that we get down to the high school level, we get these kids a taste of it, we get to keep them in state. We get to deepen that partnership, and we get to keep delivering wonderful students and talent to the industries around us.”

Hardaway said the program will likely launch with 15 students, but he hopes it will grow, and mentioned going to Lexington County and other entities to find funding to expand it. He said that they presently have enough faculty involved to support about 40 students, but they want to start small.

Hardaway explained that such efforts to train and educate new workers are vital when it comes to servicing the companies looking to invest in South Carolina.

“The name of the game is skills transfer, education upskilling and reskilling,” he said, “and that applies to the technical college student, the four-year-degree student as well as to your very own high school students.

Superintendent Greg Little, whom Hardaway praised as being instrumental in setting up the partnership, said that it will take a lot of work across the next few months to get the program set up and to recruit students into it, but he’s excited about the possibilities.

“My middle schooler loves math, so this will be pretty exciting for her, I think, in a few years,” he said. “We’re going to grow and evolve and turn this into something really absolutely brilliant and it’s already pretty cool.”