Venture Center isn't your typical office campus—it's a dynamic environment where science, entrepreneurship, and creativity collide. From unique projects tailored to interns' passions to lively events and a warm community, the internship program offers an enriching and unforgettable experience.
Antara Kulkarni (Summer Spark Intern '2024) reflects on the internship program
Venture Center is and isn’t your typical office campus: there are, of course, different departments such as Human Resources and Funding and Operations, but the area itself has various buildings and labs for scientists, entrepreneurs, business gurus, engineers, and technology experts. There’s a canteen with an array of food items and (my favorite being) drinks such as coffee or tea; there’s also always some incredibly interesting event happening at the office. It could be an eating competition, or an inauguration; it could be a musical some of the employees put on, or a tree plantation drive, a birthday celebration, or even a hike! There’s never a dull moment here: and this is a large part of what appealed to me when I was applying as an intern.
Venture Center started their Summer Spark internship program in 2023, for those from the 14-21 age bracket, and their first crop of interns accomplished so much: Shubam Chaudhury(a computer science aspirant) worked on developing intranet; Veer Sawant and Tarak Mehta(both staunch environmentalists) carried out an entire tree census where they counted all the trees in campus, their ages and when they were planted…this allowed Venture Center to be aware of its carbon sequestration and be more environmentally conscious. The fresh perspective that interns bring to existing problems, and the enthusiasm they bring to completing passion projects, is one of the reasons why Venture Center started this program in the first place. For us interns as well, this experience is an addition that makes our breaks more enriching: alongside spending time watching movies and meeting our friends, we get to have exposure to a working environment and we’re able to channel our interests into something more substantial.
One of the biggest attractors of the intern program, for me, was the chance to do something I loved: before you start your internship, you have interviews with various department heads about what your passion is, and they help you find a project you’ll truly enjoy rather than just giving you whatever work is remaining around the office. Sripad Dharpawwar, a second-year college student and intern in 2024, studies operations management and information systems at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His major interests are business and data analysis, and specifically, the area that combines these two: having heard about Venture Center from his neighbor (who’s also an incubatee here herself), he went on to their Linkedin page and filled out an application. After talking to Rohit Joshi, the head of Human Resources, The two came up with an interesting research project for him to conduct: The study of the Social Stock Exchange route for funding in India. Venture Center was registered on the BSE Social Stock Exchange in April and was keen on taking this forward. Shripad researched the processes, compliances, and documentation involved in raising funds on the Social Stock Exchange. He also crafted an initial draft of the fundraising document for this purpose. Dhruv Parekh, a 12th grade graduate who plans to study computer science engineering and artificial intelligence in college, went through a similar process where after his application and interview round, he was able to openly discuss his interests with the Venture Center team, and together, they decided on a suitable project for him.
I’m a 12th grade graduate too, and having wanted to pursue writing and journalism specifically in college since I was a child, the chance to write a book after talking to the varying impactful entrepreneurs of Venture Center was too good of an opportunity to pass up! My project was tailor-made to my interests like it was for the rest of the interns, which makes the program at Venture Center so different. The community at the office is also incredibly warm. In my first week, I was co-directing an Environmental Day musical with a trainee at Venture Center, Manasi Lele. In our breaks, we would grab coffee at the canteen and brainstorm new lyrics to old songs for the skit! We got the opportunity to meet employees from every domain - Protoshop, startups, funding departments - and we got to collaborate with them to create a funny play. After a few other interns had joined, Manasi and I would eat lunch and drink coffee with them every day; we would chat about our projects, and our interests, and soon became close friends. While continuing to blossom in our social spheres, we were also able to learn a lot about our passions: we got the chance to talk to plenty of entrepreneurs to learn about their startups and their journeys, and it was an experience I will not soon forget.