# nSpire Summer Teamship: Mentoring Local High Schoolers with SparkNC _Published: 2026-08-21T10:00:00.000-04:00_ _We handed teenagers some of the challenges our own teams are working on. Here's what they built, and what we took away. _ This summer, a group of local high school students spent three weeks working through real nCino business challenges. There was no answer key. They were given context, access to our people and our space, and freedom to decide for themselves how to approach the challenge. It was our first **nSpire Summer Teamship**, a mentorship program ran in partnership with SparkNC. Students from across New Hanover County worked alongside our employees to understand two problems facing nCino teams today. They researched, asked questions, tested ideas, and developed solutions of their own. ## Our Partnership with SparkNC We partnered with SparkNC to bring the three-week experience to life. [SparkNC](https://www.sparknc.org/) is a North Carolina education initiative that connects students with hands-on learning opportunities and pathways into technology-focused careers. The program works in part by connecting students with professionals and giving them the chance to work through real-world challenges. > nCino's partnership with SparkNC grew out of our commitment to STEAM education as a core pillar of our corporate giving. SparkNC's Spark Labs program, offered in select New Hanover County Schools, gives students the opportunity to build hands-on technical skills and earn credit toward their diplomas. Supporting this work reflects nCino's broader investment in developing technical talent in the communities where we operate, helping build the pipeline of future innovators and leaders. > > — Kyle Metzger-Gee, nCino Corporate Social Responsibility Lead ## The Challenges We Gave the Teams At the start of the program, students were divided into six teams. Instead of giving them hypotheticals, we handed them two challenges our teams are already working on. - **Challenge 1: **How can we get faster feedback on whether product messaging, branding, or feature concepts are landing with the right audiences? - **Challenge 2:** As we move quickly on AI initiatives, how can our teams have better visibility into what others are working on and avoid duplicating work? Six nCino employees served as “business partners” for the teams, mentoring them through the experience. ## The First Meeting: Digging in Deep Upon the first meeting, the students were ready. They had done their research on our company and the employees they would be working with. Each student arrived with a notebook full of questions, and they used their time together to understand not just the challenge they were given, but the business and people behind it. Every team had about 20 minutes to interview their nCino business partners. Jennifer Adams, who leads learning and enablement globally at nCino, served as one of those partners, and she recalled wondering what the next two teams could possibly have left to ask after the first team’s set of questions. She didn't have to wonder for long. Adams laughed at the memory. “Oh, they had questions. They had research. They were digging in deep.” The more they learned, the sharper their questions got. And when something wasn’t familiar, the business partners found ways to translate it, using examples like principals and teachers to explain business concepts. ## Office Takeover: Turning Questions into Ideas By week two, the students were on a bus to our Wilmington headquarters. They received a tour of the office, learned even more about the company, and started thinking about what their solutions could be. Somewhere along the way, they also discovered our snack drawers and drink coolers, which became an immediate hit. Our CEO Sean Desmond even stopped by while the teams were working, and students wasted no time turning the opportunity into an impromptu Q&A. They dug into everything, from the company itself to what it means to lead a business. After the questions, the students took over our conference rooms for “team time” to work through ideas with their nCino business partners. According to Adams, that’s when it started to feel more like a competition. She remembers the students becoming noticeably more protective of their plans, with some teams making sure the others couldn’t hear what they were working on. ## Presentation Day: Putting Their Thinking to the Test The teams working on the customer feedback challenge took different routes. One proposed an AI assistant built from existing customer interviews, another imagined a task agent that could surface relevant customer context as employees worked, and a third focused on bringing multilingual feedback and sentiment into one place. The overlap between those three approaches was what stuck with Kenna Stacks, a technical communicator at nCino and one of the business partners working with students. Each team noticed that we already have a wealth of customer insights, but it’s not always easy to surface and use when decisions are being made. “Three separate teams pointed at the same gap in a single summer,” Stacks shared. “That feels like the real finding.” The teams tackling the second challenge about visibility into AI work also took different approaches, pitching ideas like centralized dashboards and knowledge-sharing concepts. One team thought beyond simply building a solution, and mapped out how we could implement it, train employees, encourage adoption, and measure usage. ## More Than a Competition The competition was only part of what happened over those three weeks. As Adams recalled, one of the students had been so shy during the first meeting that she was too nervous to ask a question. Two weeks later, that same student stood in front of the room with a microphone and presented her team’s work. “Even just that transformation, which has nothing to do with the business, that’s big,” Adams reflected. “That’s a learning experience.” Jazz McCray, an engineering manager who served as one of the business partners, saw it too. On presentation day, students met employees’ eyes, answered questions on the spot without hesitation, and showed a level of confidence that stood out to her. “They didn’t dodge any questions,” she shared. “They were very much engaging with us.” McCray has always gravitated toward opportunities that put her in front of young people, for a reason that goes back to her own path into tech. "Growing up, I didn't know what a software engineer was," she explained, "and I'd definitely never seen a Black one, or a woman." It’s why she chose to volunteer for the Summer Teamship. She wanted the students to see someone in a technology career who might look like them or even feel familiar to them, and realize that there isn’t one prescribed route into a career like hers. “I just try to be the non-standard person those kids can look to and be like, ‘Oh yeah, I can do this too.’” That idea is at the core of SparkNC’s mission. They aim to help students who may not yet see themselves in technology discover that those pathways are possible and accessible through exposure to professionals in the field and real projects just like this. Sometimes, that exposure can be as simple as walking through a door. Adams recalls one of the SparkNC educators telling her that just bringing the students into our building can change the way they think about their futures. Some might never have known a company like ours was operating in their own community, much less imagined themselves working inside one. ## The Bigger Picture: Investing in Our Community This first Summer Teamship was a tangible way for us to invest in the talent already growing in our community. At the same time, students gained firsthand experience in collaboration and problem-solving, making connections with employees at every level of the company. The students approached each challenge without the assumptions that come with working inside the company, yet several teams still identified the same gaps employees see every day. Throughout the process, students got to test their thinking against real business needs and see how their ideas held up. For us, it helped surface where friction exists and where there may be room to work more efficiently. If this first year was any indication, there’s a lot more to learn from putting fresh perspectives in the room. We hope to do it again next summer! --- [View sitemap](https://www.ncino.com/api/markdown/sitemap)