With start-up being the buzz word and now emerging as the one of the biggest job creator sector, education institutions are gearing up to train their students so that they are prepared to take on the challenge of either setting up their own business or join a firm of their interest.
One such effort was made on February 4, 2016 by the Internship and Placement Cell of Parvatibai Chowgule College of Arts & Science (Autonomous), Margao in association with StartupGoa organized ‘Goa internship fair’ for undergraduate and post graduate students of Chowgule College.
For the first time in Goa such an innovative event was organized to provide a platform to students and industries to come together and share their expectations and working out a way to work for mutual benefits and learn from each other.
The execution of the event was spearheaded by Vasant Hede who manages the internship and placements at Parvatibai Chowgule College of Arts and Science) in association with Luke Sequeira who is the co-founder and brain behind exciting startups such as Dccper and Fleet Rover and the job portal StartupGoa. Oscar Nazareth, CEO of Licor Armada also was involved in building the event who gave the fantastic idea of having all the companies together in the form of fair when the event was in idea phase three months back in October 2015. College HR personnel Amishi Saglani also chipped-in her efforts to make this happen in Goa.
About 75 interested students took part in Goa Internship Fair which turned to be one of its kind event which is trying to bridge the gap between industry and academia by trying to make students understand ‘what exactly do organizations want?’
CEOs, HR professionals, Internship Officers and Directors of nine companies, some of which are the most exciting startups in Goa were present for the event to address the students, share their expectations, vision and also got an opportunity to understand the expectations of the students.
Principal of Parvatibai Chowgule College Dr Nandkumar Sawant informed all present that the college has made one month internships compulsory for all students who have joined last year in June 2015 and mentioned that four credits are awarded for the internships in the Choice Based Credit Sytem which the college practices.
“Internships give you an opportunity to try out a job profile and understand what suits your personality and what does not” and stressed on the point that a good internships can open up your perception towards the job scenario and are ideal platforms where a student gets pushed in areas and gets tested on his/her your strengths and weaknesses.
Luke Sequeira representing two IT startups Dccper and Fleet Rover was ecstatic with the opportunity to interact with the students, mentioning about how aggressively they are growing with 100 projects completed only in 26 months of operations as a startup with offices in Canada, UK and Goa. “Today with technology, great products could be developed by anyone from any part of the world and we take pride in creating great products sitting right here in Goa”. He connected with the students with his wit during the interaction and mentioned that how important is to be creative, innovative and learn the skill to execute an idea and make money as everyone can have great ideas at some point of time but not necessarily become successful.
Deepak Pathania spellbound all present at the auditorium with his videos where his company D Art of Science a vertical of design intervention make science very exciting and lot of fun through Youtube videos.
Deepak mentioned “We want students to understand that in content development making world class content is very necessary along with the innovation.” The presentation of an innovative science experiment or a model is equally important and that’s where the design aspect is so very essential. D art of Science has a Youtube Channel and are amongst the top five content developers making science related videos in India. Out of the 75 students, 25 students were excited about getting an internship with D Art of Science and it was unanimously the most exciting organization for Goa Internship Fair.
Oscar Nazareth a young dynamic entrepreneur owner of Startup Armada, with past experience as an Investment banker shared his experience as a college student and how working as intern at three different organizations associated with finance company and NGO and has shaped him into a successful entrepreneur today. “I was very excited to participate in this internship fair is happening because a good internship plays a very important part in shaping you as an individual and offering good internships to students is in a way I just want to pay it forward.”
The companies which visited the Chowgule College for picking up interns were Dccper and FleetRover (Website, mobile app design, software programming), Leiansis and Kaavay (Content Writing/Blogging), Armada and CyclingZens (Social Media marketing, blogging, Creative content designing), D Art of Science (Content development on YouTube, Hands on Science Experiments, Multimedia), Reynold Weddings (Sales, Production, Stylizing, Event Coordination, Decor) and Cinnamonteal (Self Publishing, love for reading and categorizing books).
Vasant Hede welcomed the companies and shared his passion and spirit behind the program. “We as a college wanted to create a platform where organizations especially the startups and students can have a dialogue and understand each other’s expectations before they start as interns.” He stressed on the point that the students should be very honest, communicate clearly to the organizations about their aspirations and doubts and when they get selected, be committed to the job profile assigned to them during the internship and never assume anything based on their perceptions.
All first year students like Ishan Abhisheki (Computer Science), Omkar Shetkar (Bio-Tech), Pranjal Pai Bhatekar (Chemistry) and Vaibhavi Naik (Zoology) did show keen interest in the D Art of Science as all of them believed that, “This is our first experience and we want to take our curriculum stream to the jobs which we will like to do later in life.”
