Educators
Virtual internships and hackathons spanning technology, engineering and social enterprise.
Working with tech startups and social enterprises in 20 countries.
“Start Me Up provides the chance to gain experience in fields as diverse as tech, social enterprise and conservation.”
View our top-rated internships
What We Offer
Established Partnerships
Flexible Length
Available Online
Full-Time or Part-Time
International
Conservation, Environmental Science, Biology
We partner with an Indonesian non-profit organization to offer a unique internship experience for students with an interest in biology, marine conservation, sustainability, and environment.
Indonesia is one of the world’s richest nations in terms of its biodiversity. There are more than 1,650 species in eastern Indonesia alone.
Working in conjunction with our partner in Indonesia, our bilingual project managers help students tackle some of the world’s most critical conservation challenges while getting experience in the nonprofit sector.
For the past 20 years, our partner organization has helped roll out the implementation of reef restoration projects using electrical currents in Indonesia.
The NGO works directly with more than 1,000 local communities in 14 villages to restore 200 km2 of coral reefs and 5 km2 of shoreline.
Responsbilities Include
Research
Ecosystem Monitoring
Data Analysis
Fundraising
Reef Restoration
Community Development
“My internship ignited my passion for marine biology and conservation and gave me the exposure to solidify my interest.”
“You get to work for real organizations on real projects. It’s been an incredible experience and I would 10/10 recommend it.”
Queen’s Biology student Summer Taylor
Engineering Internships
Among the engineering internships we offer is a unique collaboration with an Indonesian nonprofit that manufactures prosthetics. This internship is specifically geared toward students of biomedical engineering.
Our partner supports over 5,000 people with physical disabilities in Bali and East Indonesia.
It also provides rehabilitation to people with physical disabilities and empowers them through advocacy, educational and training opportunities.
The nonproft makes and distributes fitted prosthetics and orthotics, delivers wheelchairs and monitors and evaluates initiatives in the community.
Our partner NGO has provided over 3,000 prosthetics and orthotics to the community.
Students on our program worked to help bring the nonprofit’s manufacturing and design processes up-to-date using techniques such as 3D scanning, 3D modeling and printing.
Responsbilities Include
Research
3D Printing
Design
3D Modeling
Cost-Benefit Analyses
Generating Reports
“Being able to directly contribute to the NGO helping more people get prosthetics is what really motivated me to work every day.
My favorite thing was learning how to design the actual devices; it was my first time modeling something in 3D and I got to present it to them. It was really fun and it definitely felt like I was making an impact.”
Duke University Biomedical Engineering student Shane Beyer
Social enterprises contribute billions to the economy each year. Together, they are lifting communities out of poverty and solving important social problems.
We have partnerships with grassroots social enterprises in Asia-Pacific that are working in everything from education to waste management. Interns working with social enterprises get exposure to new business models, modes of funding and approaches to solving societal problems.
Responsibilities Include
Financial Analysis
Blended Finance
Fundraising Proposals
Developing New Revenue Streams
Marketing & Communications
“I was able to make a social impact while working from home.”
Anuja Shukla, National University of Singapore Bachelor of Business Administration (Accountancy)
About our UX Internships
UX is a fast-growing area of tech that offers opportunities for students from different disciplines. We focus on fast-growing tech startups that have recently attracted investment.
In our experience, UX is a mutlidisiplinary area that attracts everyone from engineers to social scientists.
UX internships are available across virtually all sectors, from fintech and data, to education and social impact.
Responsibilities Include
UX Research
Customer Personas
User Journeys
Wireframing
High Fidelity Prototyping
“I started developing the front end of the product. This involved user experience design and content strategy. My first job was to see things through the user’s eyes to understand how they interact with our product.
I’ve learned how to map a user’s journey through an online service, how to transform a user’s pains and gains into useful ideas.”
“I’ve also been project managing the creation of the minimum viable product (MVP). This means helping decide which features should be in iteration one and I’m helping the team plan the product implementation roadmap.”
University of Navarra Engineering student Mónica Larrazabal Alvarez-guerra
We cater for all subject disciplines
Breakdown by subject area
%
STEM students
%
Humanities and Social Sciences
Why Start Me Up?
Start Me Up is an award-winning provider of entrepreneurial education programs.
Our alumni hail from top universities and have gone onto work at some of the world’s most prestigious companies.
“More than just an internship.”
“I was looking to get a full flavor of what’s out there and this program does a great job with that.”
%
100% were happy with the support the Start Me Up team provided during their program
%
96% rating on Go Overseas
%
60% of those on our program have confirmed work with their startup or are in discussions about it by the end of the program
%
97% of our interns said their internship matched their interests
%
Our alumni give us on average 9/10 for their overall experience with us
Case Studies
Tomi Ogundayo spent one month i interning remotely for a Singapore-run blockchain startup. After her internship, she was invited to represent her startup at the UN World Investment Forum on Blockchain for Sustainability/Social Impact in Geneva.
“This experience is great for young people. But no matter what age, there will be something for you.”
Isabella Ippolito spent two months on Start Me Up’s remote internship program working on projects for Penguin Random House and on a viral campaign that was featured by the BBC.
After the program she was hired by the company she’d been interning with and was flown to the Kennedy Space Station in Florida to help with an art installation celebrating 50 years since the first man on the moon.
“I’m proud that I achieved exactly what I set out to do. I won new freelance clients developed a close relationship with my mentor.”
Recent Northwestern graduate, Nehaarika Mulukutla, worked with an AI startup on business development. She also helped her startup source new developers for their project.
“The internship itself was incredible: entering on ground-level with some incredible start-ups is the opportunity of a lifetime if you let it be.”
About our Social Enterprise Internships