News
September 11, 2020University at Albany Offering Support to Businesses through Virtual Internships
University at Albany is offering to support businesses to help with resurrecting the regional economy after it was decimated from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is made possible through a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Agency through which we will offer virtual internships for students to support businesses through the Fall 2020 semester and through the next couple of years. Each internship will consist of a 5-week project defined by industry sponsors to support their needs. Depending on the impact and success of the project it can be extended up to 10 weeks. Students will be available for approximately 20 hours per week and each team will have 2-3 students. Projects can involve a variety of tasks including, but not limited to, cyber security assessments, R&D and prototype development, supporting technology challenges, identifying right technologies to solve problems, online transition of businesses, business plan development.
UAlbany implemented this program during the summer with extremely positive feedback from participating businesses; it is now looking to continue its success this fall. This summer 18 interns worked on 8 projects over 10 weeks. Student got to experience working with startups first hand with a variety of technical and business tasks. At startup Chaasm, interns conducted customer discovery, worked on developing a business plan, researched venture capital firms. At startup Data Spotlite, interns cross walked the functions and features of our Cyber Security Solution CYRISMA to controls from different compliance mandates. Two teams of students conducted a technical and a business project at the startup Iconoclasm. The technical team performed software and infrastructure audits, detail threat models, conduct introductory level digital forensics, and contributed to documentation. The business team conducted market research, customer outreach, completed a SWOT analysis, and drafted a white paper. At Alchar Printing the team helped convert their business to an ecommerce business model. Other interns were deployed to the SBDC and worked on projects here at UAlbany conducting research, creating guides and doing data analytics. According to Devin Breen (Co-founder of Chaasm), “The work they did was invaluable, and they actually introduced us to new partners that are becoming very important to our ecosystem.”
The projects will be coordinated by the Blackstone Innovation Launchpad Center for Entrepreneurship. If you are interested in the program, please reach out to Professor Sanjay Goel at goel@albany.edu. We have already started forming student teams so please respond as soon as possible.
