Vertex Inc., of Berwyn is now a corporate associate at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University.

Through the partnership, Vertex will sponsor high-level student teams focused on finding solutions to real-world problems and design concepts applicable to some of the emerging trends impacting tax technology.

The Corporate Associates Program gives companies the opportunity to develop long-lasting, strategic partnerships with unique access to students, staff and faculty, and to participate in classroom projects. Recently Vertex collaborated with Dr. Shawn Clark and his Information Sciences and Technology Integration class to analyze data through social networking and discover and maintain tax information via a Wikipedia-esque prototype (imagine a “Tax-ipedia”).

Also, Michael Roytman, Vertex senior enterprise architect, taught students to leverage internal and external teams to build, market and sell applications on top of a software platform.

John Viglione, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Vertex, said the partnership is a way to narrow the science, technology, engineering and math skills gap in students.