Working during the summer? That is an idea that most of us students would immediately throw out the window. And indeed, I would agree if I had not done the Development Summer Internship at TOPdesk! Not only have I never imagined how much fun one can have at the workplace, but also, I would have never believed that such a brief period, 2 months, could teach me so much about programming and working in a team. And I have only TOPdesk to thank for this! If you think this is too good to be true, let me convince you otherwise. 

You have probably heard it a ton of times by now: “2020 has been an unforgettable year”. However, the summer of 2020 is truly unforgettable for us, mostly due to the TOPdesk Summer Internship. Together with a bunch of talented students from different backgrounds we started our journey with similar goals in mind; to improve our software development skills, make some money and of course, enjoy the summer holidays!

Developing an AI prototype

TL;DR: If you want to brush up on your programming skills, make some nice money and work in an environment with clever, friendly people: go do the Development Summer Internship!!

Introduction

Artificial intelligence is the buzzword of the decade, no question about it. While it used to be very difficult to develop an AI product from scratch (unless you were an experienced researcher), now the entry barrier is so low that even students can implement something meaningful. This was the premise of this year’s TOPdesk Development Summer Internship: get a handful of young people with affinity for programming and let them develop a technical product from scratch. The only common denominator for this year’s group was that everyone was highly motivated and a student with at least some experience with programming; besides this, the group was a nice blend of different nationalities, personalities and skillsets.