At Ubongo, we embrace change!
There are always so many great ideas that need to be executed, new products in development, and collected data that needs to be analyzed and integrated into our production processes and systems. We create and design by testing and iterating again and again in all areas of the business, and this is what makes Ubongo a very innovative and great place to work!
But with limited resources and human capital, there is only so much we can do at any given time. It is not always possible to implement every single idea or project without hiring more people. This is where we call the interns for help!
Since the very beginning, people from all over the world have expressed their love for what we do, and have wanted to be a part of it. While some have supported us financially, others have taken the opportunity to volunteer their time free of charge. We would receive emails from students who wanted an opportunity to do an internship with us. We quickly discovered that there were so many of them who were interested. Even though we needed to hire more people, with limited resources we just couldn’t fill in all the positions quickly. So we decided to leverage undergraduate and graduate students who are passionate about our work and are looking to invest in the organization and in themselves.
McDavis Ansere, intern from Stanford University
We went on to create an internship program, where students from all over the world could apply to support us in research, education, finance, operations, marketing, administration, product development, legal, production and more! We worked directly with Stanford University and the University of Texas (UT) to organize an internship program with their career centers. UT even created a scholarship for students to come work with us. The opportunities are publicized on University platforms accessed by thousands of students. Within two weeks of launching the internship program on our website, we received over 200 applications from students in Tanzania, India, the United States, France, Kenya and even Australia. It provided us a database of passionate and skilled people who could support us in the rotation for 1-3 months throughout the year.
Not only does the internship program provide us with extra helping hands, it is a great recruitment strategy which affords us an opportunity to identify prospective full-time employees who we could hire right out of university. It is also an opportunity for cultural and knowledge exchange with our Ubongoer team in a cost effective way. It creates a win-win situation both for the organization and the interns!
Nicole Griffin, intern from University of Texas
This summer we have had the privilege of hosting 10 interns from Tanzania, the United States, and Thailand. It has been wonderful exchanging ideas with them, learning from them and working together on various projects. We have achieved a lot of things that we wouldn’t have otherwise completed because of their help! We look forward to growing the internship program as we go into next year.
