The VoxCroft Transatlantic Internship Program: Part 1

We need a diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges - Tim Berners Lee

The VoxCroft dream was founded in cross-functional teams working together on important and novel problems -- an opportunity we hope to provide to a new generation of analysts, data scientists, and linguists. Our new internship program pairs top students from Brown University, George Mason University, the University of Cape Town - AIMS, and Stellenbosch University in the fields of data science, political science, and international relations.

This is not a fetch-coffee-and-make-copies internship -- they will be expected to work under the guidance of trained VoxCroft Analysts and data scientists to help produce novel and insightful products to help decision-makers understand their world better.

The program was launched by VoxCroft CEO, Casey Schmidt, who is taking the lead on setting ambitious goals for the interns. He outlined the goals for the program as follows:

• Hands-on Intelligence Tradecraft. They will write and deliver intelligence products to corporate clients in Africa and beyond. Both Casey and senior intelligence risk analysts will be advising them on formatting, style, and substance.
• Global Collaboration. Innovation is rarely an "aha!" moment. It's a messy process that requires debate, critical thinking, risk-taking, failure, and fun! Our company ethos and identity is built on inclusiveness and multidisciplinary collaboration. Together they will collaborate on existing projects, such as machine translation for low resource languages, and a new product that uses AI and data science to assess state fragility. The goal here is not to sprint and deliver a new product by summer's end, but rather enjoy the experience of exploring new possible solutions for hard questions with a diverse team.
• Career Coaching and Mentoring. VoxCroft is a multidisciplinary team with a diverse set of skills and backgrounds. Our team members have worked for the US Government, the UN, and several NGOs. Our AI and data team has consulted for Google, AirBnB, and numerous other corporations. We are well connected to Washington think tanks and many academic institutions and we wish to offer up as much career advice and networking to facilitate the interns’ career growth. Also, we will teach them the essentials of intelligence analysis and tradecraft--the same approach used to deliver insight to the President of the United States.
• Learn to Lead. Good companies and good leaders recognize that great solutions can come from anywhere. Indeed, tackling complex issues such as global hunger and violent extremism needs fresh ideas and perspectives. We will hold special sessions for them to understand their unique leadership traits and help you amplify their ideas no matter what role they have in the company. We also can give them insight into how we run and manage our global teams, a leadership skill that is applicable in any industry.

“I am thrilled to welcome this year’s team from some of the world’s top academic institutions. As a company, our core purpose is to deliver innovation for a more secure and prosperous world. This purpose can only be realized if we attract multidisciplinary talent from around the world and inspire them to be creative, take risks, and challenge the status quo. No doubt today is a huge leap towards the next VoxCroft breakthrough and I can’t wait to see what the next three months will bring.” - Casey Schmidt, CEO.

The three-month paid internship program commenced on the 25 of May. Applications for the 2022 internship program have already opened, with applications streaming in. If you are interested, you can apply here.