Build an AI portfolio that gets you hired

Externs will analyze publicly available reviews and testimonials from Amazon Fulfillment Center employees (via Glassdoor, Indeed, Reddit, and YouTube) to identify common workplace pain points—such as communication gaps, lack of recognition, or burnout. 

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After identifying a key theme, each extern will select a key employee persona and explore how that issue uniquely affects them. You'll thendesign a persona-specific solution that a team leader could use to improve the associate experience.

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• User insight synthesis
• Qualitative analysis and data-backed storytelling
• Operational problem framing
• Business-ready recommendation design
• Presentation to Amazon

Amazon Fulfillment Centers are the backbone of Amazon’s logistics network, serving as massive, high-tech warehouses where customer orders are received, stored, picked, packed, and shipped. These facilities are integral to Amazon's ability to offer rapid delivery services, including same-day and two-day shipping.

Investment memo you’ll have a chance to present to the Investment Partner for investment consideration.

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• Startup Sourcing: Learn how to find new, innovative tech startups using online tools.
• Company Research: Conduct research on potential startups, looking at things like their market and finances.
• Competitor Analysis: Research competitors in the same market to see how the startups compare.
• Investment Memo: Summarize your findings in reports that highlight key insights and recommendations.

HP Tech Ventures is the venture capital arm of HP Inc. Operating across teams in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, HP Tech Ventures is fostering an ecosystem of innovation and reinvention that will define tomorrow’s world and experiences.

This externship places students in the role of cybersecurity engineers protecting IoT pipelines. You will deliver the following:

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- AI-driven anomaly detection prototype for identifying suspicious device behavior;

- A structured security review of IoT pipelines;

- Practical playbooks and runbooks adapted for engineering teams;

- Design recommendations for securing critical water shutoff controls;

- A mock incident response report highlighting risks and mitigations.

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Tools you'll be learning and using:

- Python

- Mosquitto (MQTT Broker)

- Streamlit

By the end you will deliver a Security Improvement Report to Hydroficient that provides them risk insights, documentation, and design recommendations that better protect their systems. Through this, you gain practical, portfolio-ready cybersecurity and AI skills.

Hydroficient is a climate technology company building automated systems to optimize water usage in commercial and industrial buildings across North America. Their research shows that up to 95% of buildings are over-serviced, meaning excess water flows every time a tap runs. Hydroficient’s IoT-enabled HydroLogic platform dynamically adjusts water delivery based on actual demand, typically reducing water consumption and sewage output by around 20%. Awarded the Canadian Federal Government’s ElevateIP Grant, Hydroficient works with major restaurant chains, hotels, gyms, schools, and other large facilities used by millions of people every day.

• Incorruptible Scorecard: A detailed evaluation of a real company using Eric Ries's Incorruptible framework, analyzing financial pressures, governance structures, and mission alignment.
• Action Plan: A strategic plan of action for your chosen company to become more Incorruptible, with concrete recommendations.
• Final Capstone: A polished presentation that demonstrates your analytical skills and allows you to make your case powerfully to Eric Ries himself.

Eric Ries is the creator of the Lean Startup method and author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and Incorruptible. Over two decades, his ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices worldwide.

Deliver a client-ready pitch deck that showcases your Instagram designs, campaign strategy, and brand voice systems:

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1) Discover How Brands Build Trust Online: Map personas, define archetypes, and design mood boards to visualize OPM Pro Crew Gear’s voice.

2) Shape the Brand’s Instagram Personality: Create a visual identity system with Canva templates, grids, highlight packs, and caption frameworks.

3) Figure Out What Makes Content Go Viral: Compare Instagram and TikTok algorithms, track analytics, and reflect on growth insights.

4) Plan a Creative Social Media Campaign: Design a cross-platform campaign plan with content calendars, KPIs, and iteration strategies for Instagram and TikTok.

5) Pitch Your Brand Playbook: Synthesize all work into a client-ready deck and present your Brand Voice & Content Playbook with Instagram + TikTok assets.

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TikTok's mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. The platform strives to create new jobs, drive revenue for businesses of all sizes, and contribute to the growth of economies around the world.

Present and communicate your investment thesis to an investment committee.

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1. Financial Statements Analysis: Analyze SEC filings and company financial reports to determine financial health and identify key risks.
2. Macroeconomic & Industry Trends: Investigate macroeconomic conditions and industry-specific trends influencing stock market performance.
3. Risk & Catalyst Identification: Identify potential risks and market catalysts that could impact company valuations and stock performance.
4. Trading Activity & Analyst Ratings: Review insider transactions and analyst ratings to gauge investor confidence and market sentiment around the company.
5. Financial Model Development: Construct robust valuation models to forecast financial performance and price targets.
6. Investment Memo & Presentation: Prepare professional, detailed investment memos and present recommendations clearly to stakeholders.

Provide Breaking Games with clear, actionable strategies based on the data analysis, such as optimizing ad targeting, improving website flow, and/or tailoring promotional efforts to enhance sales.

• E-Commerce Sales Funnel Report: A summary of key metrics and marketing channel performance.
• Visitor Behavior Dashboard: Analysis of traffic sources and engagement with actionable improvement suggestions.
• Paid Campaign Performance Report: Identification of top-performing ads with ROI-based budget reallocation strategies.
• Conversion Funnel Analysis: Detailed breakdown of drop-off points and product performance insights.
• Cross-Channel Attribution Report: Evaluation of how various marketing efforts directly drive Shopify sales.
• Visual Customer Journey Map: Diagnosis of funnel bottlenecks from initial ad exposure to final purchase.
• Customer Segmentation Plan: Data-driven marketing strategies for high-value upselling and retargeting.
• Final Strategic Action Plan: A professional presentation synthesizing all insights into a comprehensive growth roadmap with defined KPIs.

Breaking Games is the publishing arm of AdMagic—the powerhouse behind hits like Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens. But they’re more than just a traditional publisher. They help invent, test, launch, and distribute both their own games and others’, working across the entire tabletop ecosystem. This externship offers a rare peek behind the scenes of how digital marketing powers the business side of play.

During this Externship, externs will:

• Ingest and parse scanned documents
• Extract and structure key data fields from multiple document types
• Implement intelligent search using RAG pipelines and metadata filters
• Build and test modular routing and classification logic
• (Optional) Deploy a lightweight user interface for search and querying

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Technologies used:

• Python (scripting, data processing)
• PyMuPDF, pdfplumber (PDF parsing)
• OpenCV, PIL (image preprocessing)
• OCR Engines: Tesseract, PaddleOCR, EasyOCR
• Vector Search: LlamaIndex, FAISS, Chroma
• LLMs: Gemini API or open-source models (e.g., Mistral, Phi-2)
• UI Tools: Streamlit, Gradio (optional)

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Final project outputs:

• Python pipeline to process document files
• Structured JSON output with field-level data and coordinates
• Functional RAG pipeline (Gemini or open-source)
• Searchable UI using Streamlit or Gradio
• Final report, system documentation, and demo

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Why should you care? Here's what you'll get out of this Externship:

• Develop a portfolio-worthy AI/ML project
• Gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge tools and models
• Learn to build robust, production-level systems
• Improve data parsing, extraction, and visualization skills
• Tackle a real-world, high-impact business use case

Pfizer is one of the world's largest publicly traded pharmaceutical companies, developing and manufacturing medicines and vaccines that reach hundreds of millions of people globally. They partnered with BioNTech to create the first FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine. In 2024, Pfizer reported $63 billion in revenue and products reaching 414 million patients worldwide—massive scale. Their clinical supply operations ensure that the right drugs get to the right patients at the right time—a process that depends on flawless documentation across shipping, logistics, and regulatory compliance.

• Get Familiar with the Data: Learn the fundamentals of data analytics and its applications in healthcare. Use AI tools to refine research questions and explore public datasets.
• Data Collection & Pre-processing: Gather infection-related data from public sources, clean and structure it for analysis, and address missing values.
• Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA): Perform statistical and correlational analyses to identify patterns and trends in infection rates. Create visual representations of findings.
• Presentation Development: Develop structured presentations using AI-generated reports and visualization techniques. Use Gamma.app and Google Slides for final presentations.
• Interactive Dashboard Creation: Build interactive dashboards with Power BI and Claude to showcase trends and facilitate data-driven decision-making.

TruBridge has over four decades of experience in connecting providers, patients and communities with innovative solutions that create real value by supporting both the financial and clinical side of healthcare delivery.

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We are a trusted partner to healthcare organizations with a broad range of technology offerings that address the unique needs and challenges of diverse communities, promoting equitable access to quality care and fostering positive outcomes.

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Our industry leading HFMA Peer Reviewed® suite of revenue cycle management (RCM) offerings combine unparalleled visibility and transparency to enhance productivity and support the financial health of healthcare organizations across all care settings.

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Our solutions champion end-to-end, data-driven patient journeys that support value-based care, improve outcomes, and increase patient satisfaction. We support efficient patient care with electronic health record (EHR) product offerings that successfully integrate data between care settings.

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Above all, we believe in the power of community and encourage collaboration, connection, and empowerment with our customers. We clear the way for care.

A live dashboard powered by your AI agents, built to surface trends, benchmarks, and content suggestions that Wayfair's category team can actually use.

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Project Breakdown:

1. Build a Moodboard Agent: Create a simple AI tool that transforms style prompts into curated visual outputs.

2. Discover Market Trends: Build agents that collect and analyze product data, blogs, and social media to uncover design trends.

3. Monitor Competitors: Develop AI agents to track competitor launches, pricing updates, and marketing campaigns.

4. Generate AI Insights: Turn raw trend signals into summaries, draft blog ideas, and campaign captions.

5. Build the Dashboard: Combine datasets and insights into a live, auto-updating Google Sheets tool for managers.

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Tools Used:

n8n - a workflow automation software tool

Google Gemini

Mistral AI

Wayfair is one of the world’s largest online destinations for home furnishings and is known for its data-driven approach. Behind the 30M+ products you see online are teams using AI to move faster and smarter. This is your backstage pass to see — and build — how that happens.

During this Externship, externs will:

• Design a Real Survey: Build a structured survey to uncover what Pinterest is genuinely "hired" to do in a Gen Z user's life, applying a Jobs-to-be-Done framework to write focused, unbiased questions.
• Collect Real Data: Identify respondents in their own network, write outreach messages, deploy the survey and collect at least 30 real responses.
• Synthesize Insights: Turn raw response data into one or more honest, defensible behavioral insights, using manual descriptive statistics and qualitative coding verified with AI.
• Build an Ad Opportunity Recommendation: Synthesize everything with the What/So What/Now What framework, stress-test it with AI, and deliver it in a polished deck and recorded video.

Final deliverables:

• Custom survey designed to uncover Gen Z Pinterest usage behavior and jobs-to-be-done
• Set of real survey responses (30+), collected through personal outreach
• One or more evidence-backed behavioral insights from manual and AI-verified analysis
• Evidence-backed advertising opportunity recommendation for Pinterest
• Polished, presentation-ready slide deck
• Recorded video presentation delivering the final recommendation

Develop a comprehensive creative strategy framework for Beats by Dre video advertising, then demonstrate its application through an original creative concept.

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• Catalog and analyze 20-30 video ads across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube into a structured, insight-ready repository.
• Design and execute a consumer survey to capture real reactions to advertising content, combined with social listening insights.
• Build a Creative Strategy Framework including platform best practices, brand creative standards, effectiveness rubric, competitive analysis, and strategic recommendations.
• Develop an original creative concept with a creative brief, framework compliance evaluation, and a 5-minute strategic presentation.

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By the end of this Externship, externs will have created:

• Ad Repository Database (20-30 tagged ads)
• Consumer Feedback Report
• Creative Strategy Framework Package
• Creative Concept Presentation

Beats by Dre, founded in 2006, is a leading audio brand known for its premium headphones, earphones, and speakers. As a company focused on innovation and customer satisfaction, Beats by Dre uses data-driven insights to ensure its products stay ahead of market trends and meet the needs of its global audience.

By the end, you'll have built:

• A Challenge POV on your chosen DEP Challenge and the territory you claimed
• A vetted company pipeline of roughly 5 fully profiled startups with eligibility results, relevance ratings, and sourced rationale
• A ranked top-3 shortlist with evidence for why each company beats the rest
• A Top Companies Briefing: a 3 to 4 slide deck with a recorded walkthrough of your top picks and strongest recommendation