Alcatel-Lucent renews its commitment to the Cercle Passeport Telecoms

More than 200 volunteers mobilize in France and the US to help young people from difficult urban areas access higher education

Paris - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), for the fourth year in a row, has committed to the “Cercle Passeport Télécoms” program, a public-private partnership dedicated to help young people from difficult urban areas. The program supports students with sponsorship and mentoring schemes to help them integrate in leading business and engineering schools or universities in France.

For the academic year 2009-2010, Alcatel-Lucent will mobilize more than 200 volunteers (134 mentors from its French teams and 70 from the United States).

In addition to the initiatives engaged together with the partner companies, the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation offers all Cercle Passeport Telecoms students a window on the world by encouraging them to practice the English language.

In 2010, the Foundation will repeat its “We made it!” contest, which enabled 22 selected students to spend a week of total immersion in the USA, last June. Staying with the families of Alcatel-Lucent employees in New Jersey, students are given the opportunity to find out about American culture, meet some Alcatel-Lucent partners and customers, and visit New York.

The “We made it!” contest follows on from an program set up in 2007 whereby mentors from Alcatel-Lucent’s US teams conducted regular telephone interviews in English with the French students.

The Alcatel-Lucent Foundation will also pursue its series of videoconferences between Paris and New Jersey on the topic “Working across cultures.” The series aims at practicing conversational English, understanding cultural differences between the two countries, and share practical information about living in the USA, such as how to find an internship or a summer job, how to write and present a résumé, etc.

“Through the Cercle Passeport Telecoms, the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation reiterates its commitment to diversity and equal opportunities by making higher education more accessible to young people from under-privileged backgrounds,” says Alcatel-Lucent Foundation’s executive director Béatrice Tassot. “The 200 volunteers involved in this program on both sides of the Atlantic are there to support and advise the students, facilitate their access to the enterprise (learning about trades, visiting sites, etc.), assist them with their career choices (project planning, interview preparation, etc.), get them speak English and, finally, help them build up a professional network.”

For more information on « We Made it », visit Alcatel-Lucent’s WebTV.

About the “Cercle Passeport Télécoms”
Created in 2006 at the initiative of SFR, the “Cercle Passeport Télécoms", consists of seven telecom companies (Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson France, Gemalto, Nokia France, Nokia Siemens Networks, Orange, SFR) that joined forces with the French public institutions to create a program a program designed for young people from disadvantaged areas in France presents in 46 classes préparatoires and in the major engineering and business schools (40 grandes écoles partners). The objective is to help them throughout their studies to get through the stages of a high level of education with the prospect of obtaining a higher-education qualification.

About the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation

The Alcatel-Lucent Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Alcatel-Lucent and it leads the company’s charitable activities. With a focus on education and volunteerism, the Foundation’s mission is to support the commitment of Alcatel-Lucent to social responsibility by serving and enhancing the communities where its employees and customers live and work. To accomplish its mission, the Foundation manages grants, corporate contributions and employee volunteerism on a global level. It is defined as a “charitable”, non-governmental, non-profit, private organization that receives its income from the corporation — Alcatel-Lucent — whose name it bears. However, legally it is an independent entity and is governed by its own board of trustees that is separate from the corporate board of directors. For more information, visit: www.alcatel-lucent.com/CPT

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com