Symba started out as a solution to facilitate paid, remote internships and promote equitable access to early career development opportunities. Even as we’ve evolved as a startup and are now focused on workforce development as a whole, interns are still at the heart of what we do. We believe in the importance of internships and the value that interns bring to their organizations. We’ve hosted several interns over the years and they’ve all driven immense impact through the work they’ve done.
This year, to celebrate National Intern Day, we wanted to share our interns’ voices and highlight their hopes and their experiences as interns so far. We interviewed four of our interns, three present and one past, and we’re excited to share their stories with you!
Laukik Nagawekar and Ishani Chakraborty both recently started their internships with Symba. Laukik is our Business Development Intern, who has already made amazing contributions in building out our Ideal Partner Profiles and conducting research for our ASU+GSV Conference outreach plan. Ishani, our Data Analyst Intern, just joined us about a week ago and will be focusing on how Symba can leverage AI as well as helping our customers harness their data on our platform.
To our new interns, we asked: what do you hope to gain from your experience interning at Symba?
Laukik: I come from a background in engineering and design, where the three principles I was encouraged to follow were - passion, innovation, and perseverance. These 3 words describe Symba to a T. Symba is a dynamic, diverse, and hard-working team, dedicated to assisting the future workforce.
I'm looking forward to learning more about implementing new market strategies, nurturing customer relationships, and expanding a product's market base, but I'm even more excited to nurture characteristics like those three that will help me grow not only professionally but also personally!
Ishani: Symba is a woman power-driven company that aims to change the game of workforce development through a single platform with multiple services. Where I find myself fitting right into Symba immediately is the work environment and the people. Ever since middle school, it’s always been a dream of mine to work in an industry or for a company that was dominated by women, because it’s almost rare that we see some of the most competitive industries giving such intellectual and accomplished women a chance.
Being a woman in STEM, moreover, a woman in tech, it’s no secret that almost the entire industry continues to be dominated by men, where at Symba we are able to revamp the management of data-driven processes through the ideation, creation, and production powered by a whole team of empowered women. I also hope to gain a lot more hands-on technical experience, which I am deprived of in an institutional setting, but I am lucky enough to be able to work closely with the CTO herself which is a rare opportunity for an intern in any setting.
Nasim Ranjbari is our Design Intern and has been with Symba the longest.
We asked Nasim, how has your internship experience at Symba impacted your career and personal development?
Nasim: My internship experience at Symba has been amazing! I have learned the importance of team work and how having a supportive team can help you to achieve your goals inside and outside of the work. This is my first internship and it has helped me to get to know my abilities and gain real world work experience. I have worked on my time management, team work, and PhotoShop skills, and learned how to use different tools to create GIFs, questionnaires, and reports. By participating in different meetings, I have had the chance to learn the process of adding a new feature to the platform and understand how much work is behind all these features. I am so glad that I got to meet these amazing people and make lifetime connections with them!
Andrew Yohanan was our Marketing Intern, who worked with us for nearly a year. He made significant contributions to our marketing strategy, including (but definitely not limited to) SEO keyword research, competitor analysis, outlining new website pages, helping to create case studies, tracking social media analytics, and more! As a Kellogg MBA Candidate, Andrew is currently working with Mondelez, the international food conglomerate.
We asked Andrew: how did your internship experience at Symba prepare you for your current role at Mondelez?
Andrew: We always have to be thinking of new ways to approach the problem in front of us. It is extremely unlikely that we have all the information necessary to make the right decision, yet being resourceful and trying a new approach will propel you to success. At Symba (like all startups) every new technology or the latest customer research simply is not available.
By being scrappy you can deliver not only a final product that took someone else twice as long and at ten times the cost; but you also gain a superior wealth of knowledge to prepare you for the future. Being resourceful will set you apart from the pack today, tomorrow, and forever.
Our team at Symba is endlessly grateful for the positive energy, innovative ideas, and contributions our interns bring to the table. Thank you, interns, and Happy National Intern Day!
