Presidential communication

Letter from the President

Office of the President, president@uidaho.edu | Aug. 28, 2026

Dear Vandals,

As summer interns at Profit Recovery Partners (PRP), Aaron Guevara ’26 and Syed Sakib’s mission was clear: eliminate time-consuming manual tasks and streamline a complex paperwork system for their colleagues.

However, their path to success didn’t start at PRP’s headquarters, where the expense reduction company has helped clients save more than $11 billion since its founding. Guevara and Sakib’s internship began in the U of I Administration Building, where a unique bootcamp familiarized them with the company and equipped them to tackle emerging technologies.

Before departing for their internship in late May, Guevara and Sakib spent two weeks immersed in a training program designed by U of I employees. Dan Ewart, the university’s vice president of Information Technology, collaborated with PRP leadership to identify specific needs that the U of I’s AI experts then developed into a targeted curriculum.

“They worked with a combination of faculty and staff and learned the tools that they needed to do the AI coding,” Ewart explained. “They quickly proved they were ready to take on the internship.”

This preparatory phase was crucial. When the pair arrived at PRP, they were immediately assigned with solving a critical problem. PRP processes massive volumes of raw data from hundreds of clients each month, a labor-intensive task that depended on manual entry. Guevara, who earned his bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity in the spring, described the solution.  

“We’re making an agentic AI-enabled app so that clients can put in data and then it comes out in a formatted table,” he said.

Agentic systems, capable of analyzing information and making decisions with minimal human intervention, promised to save PRP employees hundreds of hours of labor each year.

The experience offered a stark and valuable contrast to academic study. Sakib, a doctoral student in computer science, noted that while his classwork usually involves structured, error-free data, the internship presented real-world datasets that often need formatting and correction.

“The biggest challenge was understanding the data and their whole process,” Sakib admitted. “With this internship, we’re getting our hands on actual data, so we come up with real solutions. This experience will be very helpful in my career, as well as my research.”

Colin Addington, a senior projects manager for U of I’s Institute for the Interdisciplinary Data Sciences (IIDS), helped run U of I’s bootcamp. He emphasized that the students’ training went beyond coding.

“They’re getting exposed to things like standard software development life cycles and learning how to speak to a client,” Addington said. “They’re also building experience dealing with budgets and timelines.”

This holistic approach ensured the students were not just technical contributors but professional partners. The bootcamp model proved to be a valuable collaboration. The students learned how to apply their education and skills to a business problem while PRP gained a time-saving solution.

Guevara and Sakib’s success validated a new model for student internships that can be replicated for future interns and industry partners. Ewart said the goal was to create a repeatable process where students gain tremendous experience while adding genuine value to businesses.

For Guevara and Sakib, this summer’s internship was more than just a job — it was a transformative chapter that proved the U of I’s commitment to preparing students not only to enter the workforce but to lead within it. Their story demonstrates that the most valuable education happens when students are challenged to solve real problems with high stakes.

Go Vandals!

C. Scott Green
President

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