A Day in the Life of an IQT Summer 2021 Intern

Transcript

[Music] [Music] my name is brady ryan and i was an intern on the marketing communications team this summer at inkytel i graduated from virginia tech with a degree in political science for national security and i've previously held internships on capitol hill and with the unlocking potential foundation my name is sally egan and i've been the enterprise technologies intern this past summer my background is i am a rising senior at stanford university double majoring in mathematical and computational science and international relations with a specialization in international security my name is raheem clement and this summer i was the project engineer intern and my main role was helping develop an in-house tool to help improve the current workflow of hiki tub deals i'm currently a rising junior at washington jefferson college pursuing a double major computer science and international business previously i've interned for a startup called activities helping improve their business development pipeline and with the lab at michigan state university or helped improve the front end of some of their web applications my name is nathan burgin and i was a b next intern at iqt this past summer where i focused on the intersection of public health biotechnology and national security i graduated from georgetown university's school of foreign service this past may where i studied science technology and international affairs with a specific concentration in biotechnology and global health hi i'm kate beau i am the intern on the international team supporting the investments and operations of the iqt offices in the uk and australia this summer i'm currently an mba student at mit sloan and i'm heading into my second year there i'm concentrated on finance and entrepreneurship within my mba program my name is andrew schwab and i'm currently a summer intern on inkitel's u.s investment team i'm currently an mba student at harvard business school previously i studied business administration undergrad at uc berkeley and i also worked in technology m a advisory at pjt partners and in global business strategy and operations at google so i chose incutel for a summer internship because i wanted a chance to see what a tech internship would be like while also working in the national security field i wanted an internship that existed at the intersection of my academic and professional interests in national security public health venture capital and biotechnology and where i could contribute to a mission that would make the united states safer now that was a long list and one i certainly didn't expect to find especially right out of college but iqt has provided all of that and more i've had the opportunity to work with teams in each of those areas who are familiar with the intersection and helped me grow both as an employee and as someone thinking about these topics this summer i chose iqt because i heard it was a great place to see a lot of interesting emerging tech and work on some more challenging projects which have been really fun i chose to do my summer internship at inqtel because i wanted to help invest in some of the startups that are solving the biggest and most important technological problems that we're facing as a society today i chose inquitel for my summer internship because i've always been interested in the intelligence community and i think that inqtel provided me with a really great opportunity to utilize some of my interests in emerging technology and national security as we contributed towards the mission of the company and the ic broadly i chose ink utel for my summer internship because i was drawn to its purpose-oriented activities and teams and because of the unique role it plays in the startup and venture ecosystem and serving the public and private private sectors as well the firm also has a great track record of investment and so i was really excited to learn from and be around the investment team as well as the first-rate technical team who supports all of the investments and the investment processes i had the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with people that were qualified to have taught the classes i was in just months ago and to do so in a way that allowed me to create an impact right away there's such a broad variety of companies and technologies that i've been exposed to and i've learned a lot about how to approach deep tech investing even across these various and kind of different industries that i've taken away from this summer is how it seems like at iqt all the teams and my colleagues have such expertise in a field or sector it seems like everyone has their tech that they know so well or have spent a lot of time studying or working in and they really know everything or almost everything in that space and in that market so it's been great to work with them to learn about how they developed that expertise and one of the sorts of things you can do to hone in on building expertise and subsequently developing investment theses and then making decisions about which startup investments to pursue the highlight of my experience here has been the people i've worked with the pe team and management have been absolutely wonderful and being able to learn about new tech while completing projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone it's been incredible for me personally the thing i've enjoyed most about the internship has definitely been the people i've been blown away by how generous with their time some of my team members have been and that's been amazingly helpful as i've gotten up to speed on the technologies we're looking at and the different ways that we can invest the thing i enjoyed most while being at inquitel is definitely the variety of projects i've had a chance to work on every day was a little bit different on our team it always kept things fresh and exciting and allowed me to just meet so many people and interact with so many different teams at the company to really provide a nice unique perspective the way things actually operate so i really enjoy getting a chance to present my findings from the summer both to different subgroups within inquitel as well as to the broader company i think that the conversation sparked as a result of the work that i've been doing really made me feel like i've been contributing meaningful insights which is a different experience than i've had at other internships where it sort of felt like i was just doing the grunt work that no one else wanted to do [Music] take advantage of the opportunity to create impact and bring unconventional ideas to the table we're members of the team right away so be ready to learn and contribute to the mission something i would suggest to a future intern it's actually probably before you start your internship do some prep or research on a specific um like topic or tech area or area of interest because there are so many great resources and opportunities with ink utel to learn and dive deeper and if i could give advice to a future intern at inquitel it would definitely be to just be as observant as possible when you come into the company there's so many moving pieces and there's so much information out there that's available to you you just have to be observant uh be able to talk with as many people as possible make the right connections and just be able to utilize your resources to understand how amazing the company really is my advice for future iqt interns is to know what you want to get out of the internship and make sure you communicate that with your team folks here really want to see you develop and enjoy your time while you're here so having a plan ahead of time can be really helpful in structuring the activities you'll work on while you're here if i were to give any advice to future interns i'd just say meet people meet people and talk to them um everyone at incutable comes from diverse and different backgrounds and they're all very passionate and knowledgeable about what they do um so it's a lot of fun just hearing where people came from and what they're working on now take advantage of the unique space that you're at um at inquitel you have access to people from every single intelligence organization as well as people who know the inner workings of those agencies better than anyone else so make connections with these people while you're at inquitel because there's really no better time than this internship to do it incutel truly is an amazing company i've never been surrounded with so many charismatic and brilliant people you truly will be surrounded with some of the brightest people and some of the brightest minds that you'll find anywhere so definitely utilize every opportunity you can while at incutel and enjoy your experience because it's a great place to be there's no more important time than now to be working in the fields that iqt occupies the unique mix and approach of venture capital and national security that you find here provides unbelievable perspective on critical issues and an acute sense of mission that permeates the entire company it's a tremendous opportunity to work with people who are so dedicated to that mission who are dedicated to ensuring our intelligence and government communities continue to have access to cutting-edge technologies and that the united states is at and looking beyond the horizon as we enter a new era of technological change [Music]