VoxCroft’s Internship Program: Training the Future of OSINT

VoxCroft’s political risk and data analysis internship is a top-tier program, designed to train the next generation of Africa's open-source intelligence (OSINT) professionals. The program—recognized as one of the best paid internship programs in South Africa—offers interns the chance to immerse themselves in a variety of OSINT activities, under the expert guidance of VoxCroft’s interdisciplinary team. Such activities include data collection and conditioning, intelligence report writing, and operational security monitoring. Interns are encouraged to collaborate on key data science projects and make use of VoxCroft’s selection of in-house tools—from Arrow to machine translation and AI-enabled state fragility assessors.

Over the course of the internship, VoxCroft’s analysts and data scientists run an array of skills development workshops aimed at giving our interns the necessary tools and knowledge to further their careers in the OSINT space. Some of our most successful workshops include Essentials of Intelligence Tradecraft, Lifecycle of an Insurgency Movement, AI & Architecture, and What Does it Mean to be a VoxCroft Analyst? VoxCroft’s interns also benefit from career coaching and mentoring, facilitated by the company’s outstanding leadership team.

The first two internship rounds ran from May to August, 2021, and December, 2021 to March, 2022, with six out of the eight interns hired over these periods staying on as contractors and contributing across the company. We welcomed our third cohort of interns at the beginning of July, selecting five impressive candidates from a pool of over 250 applicants, following a rigorous recruitment process. The new interns—Divashnee, Katelynn, Kay-Cee, Langelihle, and Sinenhlanhla—come from a wide range of academic backgrounds, including political science, international relations, law, and data science, and we are pleased to introduce each of them below:

Divashnee is a final year law student at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She previously completed an undergraduate degree in political science—cum laude—at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa, spending a semester abroad at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She received a number of academic accolades, including recognition as one of UKZN’s highest achieving social science students, and scholarships to both UKZN and UCT. She is keenly interested in the intersection of politics and law; public policy, governance, and political risk, in particular, buoyed by her time as a research intern at the Women’s Legal Center in Cape Town, South Africa.

Katelynn is studying for her Bachelor of Arts (BA) Honors in international relations at Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa. She holds a BA in politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE), cum laude. She currently serves on the board of Belgian NGO Comité Diplomatique and as a political science tutor and teaching assistant at SU, previously working at SU’s international office. She is particularly interested in violent political conflict, terrorism, and foreign policy analysis, and is hoping to pursue a Master’s degree in a related field.

Kay-Cee is a current BA Honors student at UCT, specializing in international relations. She completed her BA in linguistics, politics, and governance at UCT, graduating with academic distinction and achieving Dean’s List in 2019 and 2021. Her work experience includes various outreach projects, including peer-tutoring literacy and numeracy for the Students’ Health and Welfare Centers Organization (SHAWCO), as well as writing for Her Campus—a global student-led online magazine. She is especially interested in issues relating to the drug trade, human trafficking, and crime.

Langelihle is completing his Master’s degree in international relations at UCT. He previously attended the University of Zululand in South Africa, obtaining his BA in political science and philosophy, cum laude. His work experience includes monitoring education and health portfolio committee meetings at the Parliament of South Africa, as well as tutoring political science at UCT. His main interests are in global conflict, foreign policy, and international economics—he is currently researching regional integration theory.

Sinenhlanhla is a Master’s student at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying e-science. She obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree in PPE from Wits and a Bachelor of Social Science Honors degree in PPE from UCT. She is interested in exploring the convergence of data science and social science, and is particularly intrigued by the prospect of using machine learning to study social media subcultures and the role of the Internet in economic, political, and social transformation.

If you are interested in applying for future VoxCroft internships, keep an eye on our LinkedIn page for further information and application announcements later this year.