The Internship

This internship experience has turned out to be much more valuable than I thought.  It's not because I'm doing more exciting tasks than I thought I would be doing, or meeting more cool people (although I have met a lot); the main value has come from learning about startup culture and realizing that I could see myself working in this world.  I have learned more about startups in the last 5 weeks than I have about anything in only 5 weeks of time.  Startups are really important to Argentina from an economic standpoint.  Their economy has been struggling quite a bit, and there is quite a bit of unemployment.  This has lead to people working for themselves, a lot of times because they have no other option.  It's amazing what this has done for the startup culture here; almost everyone I meet at networking events, startup events, and within my organization have so many great ideas for startups, and they aren't afraid to pursue them.  Although there isn't a lot of funding for startups in Argentina right now, it's obvious that Buenos Aires is becoming more known as a startup ecosystem around the world, and I suspect it won't be long until the amount of Venture Capital funding down here increases significantly.  The startup community really has a chance to help turn the economy around and create jobs for the talented workers down here.  It's no Silicon Valley, but who knows, perhaps with time it will become a tech powerhouse.

My work is awesome because although I have a lot of day to day tasks, some of my larger projects will really make an impact down the road.  I'm working on a market research report that will really give our organization a good idea of what startups struggle with the most, and what we can do to make a difference for them.  It has been an amazing experience so far, and I look forward to making the best of it for the time I have left.