We recently completed one of our favorite annual traditions at Karsun, our intern presentations and celebration. Our onsite interns joined our local Washington, D.C., area employees for an ice cream social this year. We concluded the day with project presentations to our executive and leadership team. Working inside our Karsun Innovation Center, we are constantly inspired by the new approaches to government technology our interns develop. 

Karsun Solutions 2023 Summer Interns. Five pictures of the featured interns Mithran Mohanraj, Sinduja Sankar, Luca Moukheiber, Soumya Nambi Ganesh and Nikhil Davangere Basavaraj.

Presenting, demoing, and describing their work is crucial to the Karsun internship experience. Our interns presented to their Innovation Center colleagues twice a month during our “Show Don’t Tell” meeting. In addition to contributing to Innovation Center projects, each intern completed a specialized learning path and received mentorship from an Innovation Center leader. As part of their learning path, each intern worked toward a professional certification related to their internship project. 

This information technology internship cohort covered topics ranging from AI/ML and data driven decision-making to driving engagement through well-designed applications. We covered these projects in our blog over the past month. If you missed it, we summarized their incredible work below.

Applications That Drive Engagement

Mithran Mohanraj strengthened his UI/UX skills, built prototype applications, and experimented with approaches to improve engagement with those apps. As part of his internship, he adapted to changing requirements while training alongside design experts in the Innovation Center. In the question and answer portion of his final presentation, Mithran revealed his internship allowed him to experiment with human centered design principles like incremental changes to form designs based on ongoing user feedback. Learn how his experience helped him develop Applications That Drive Engagement.

Building Better with Business Automation

Sinduja Sankar, a computer science graduate student, explored automating dynamic workflows for her internship. Working with experts in the fast-paced Innovation Center, she built a proof of concept using the open source business automation platform Kogito. As she researched the implementation of this tool, she also engaged in bi-weekly Innovation Center “Show, Don’t Tell” sessions. She not only received recognition for her work, she learned from the work performed by other experts and innovators at Karsun. Learn how Sinduja was Building Better with Business Automation.

Exploring Code Generation for Contracts Management

Luca Moukheiber was part of a team developing an AI-assisted contracts management proof of concept. Using a Large Language Model (LLM) to generate code, he built custom interfaces for reporting. In this immersive experience, as Luca studied prompt engineering, he worked closely with teams using AI-assisted development methodologies. Learn more about Luca’s project, Exploring Code Generation for Contracts Management.

Leveraging Data for Agile Decision-Making

Soumya Nambi Ganesh worked with our Innovation Center team to develop a dashboard for executive reporting. The dashboard will ultimately be used for strategic decision-making. She assessed business needs and objectives while participating in every step of the process as part of this project. That included gathering requirements, building data pipelines, transforming the data, and constructing visualizations. She also deepened her understanding of Python as part of her learning path. Read her project and profile to discover how Soumya explored Leveraging Data for Agile Decision-Making.

Applying DevOps Skills to Real-Life Problems

Our final internship project spotlight is Nikhil Davangere Basavaraj’s application of DevOps to a platform developed by the Karsun Innovation Center. As part of this project, he leveraged tools like Terraform to enhance application logging and improve threat detection. While learning real-world security strategies, Nikhil worked with his mentor and prepared for his AWS certifications. Join Nikhil on his cloud journey and learn about his internship experience Applying DevOps Skills to Real-Life Problems.

Each summer, Karsun hosts an internship cohort. Once applications are open, they are listed on our career site, KarsunCareers.com. We hope you join us and Find Your Next in our Innovation Center next year.

A Master of Science in Business Analytics student, Soumya Nambi Ganesh tested her data science skills working with the Agile Decision Dashboard team as part of her Karsun Innovation Center internship. In taking on this project, which reports key metrics to executive and management-level decision-makers, she tackled everything from requirements gathering to data pipelines to transforming the data and constructing visualizations. Discover how Soumya worked with the Innovation Center Research and Development (RnD) team to build this dashboard and find her next.

First please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

Hi, I’m Soumya Nambi Ganesh. I’m pursuing a Master of Science degree in Business Analytics at the University of Southern California in LA. In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing, playing badminton and watching all genres of movies.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenge does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

As part of my internship at Karsun, I worked on building an Agile Decision Dashboard. This dashboard includes interactive visualizations built on company – data in terms of Objectives, Key Results, Costs, Management, Quality and Schedule. I was given the opportunity to be a part of the project right from the beginning – where I met with the executives of the company for personal interviews on their requirements for the dashboard. I worked on the entire data pipeline, which involved identifying various data sources, building scripts to extract data and transforming the data into desirable formats. I then worked on computing new metrics and eventually constructing visualizations that are to be used for intuitive decision-making by the executives. 

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

My favorite part of working at KIC is the opportunity to meet with colleagues with different skills and expertise, in a close-net team and learn of their various perspectives. I love a good challenge and working with the KIC team offered me new tasks, with changing requirements in a sort of RnD environment. This pushed me to get out of my comfort zone, quickly learn new tools and methods and implement the same. 

I also was able to enhance my data science skills by undertaking a course on Udemy, through Karsun, which was a bonus to my learning here! 

What is your biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

My main takeaway would be bridging the gap requirements and data. This involves understanding executive-level and management-level requirements and then finding a way to clean messy data, transform them into meaningful metrics and display them as visualizations to answer specific business questions. I was also able to improve on this process through the continuous feedback I received from various members of the team, for which I am grateful. 

Soumya completed her internship as part of the Karsun Innovation Center. Learn Karsun accelerate Data Solutions adoption. Connect with Soumya on LinkedIn to learn more about her experience.

Nikhil Davangre Basavaraj’s Innovation Center internship not only helped him prepare for an AWS certification, it also gave him real-life DevOps experience. Nikhil, a Computer Science Masters student, advanced these skills while working on tools used by Karsun teams. Along the way, he built Terraform scripts, assessed costs for AWS services and developed on Karsun’s AI-Asssisted Redux Platform. Take a deep dive into Nikhil’s process and his experience during his internship in this interview. 

First, please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

Hi all !! My name is Nikhil. I am currently doing my Masters in Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). In my free time I like to play cricket or go for a swim. I love watching movies and anime as well.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenges does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

Initially, I built an Appsheet app called “Fedelivery”, which helps Government Organizations spread across the US to handle deliveries of confidential items. After this I was working with a fellow intern on implementing push notifications for the KIC Konnect app using Firebase. 

Later on, I started working on DevOps tasks. My first task was to configure logging in the Application Load Balancer level in AWS using Terraform. Although it was my first time working with Terraform, with the help of my mentors, I was able to understand and complete the task successfully. 

The next task that I took over was to enable Application Logging in the EKS level, where data is logged in AWS Cloudwatch from EKS using Fluent Bit. The logs in CloudWatch are to be stored for 7 days which will then be moved to an S3 bucket for further storage for 30 days. Later on, the data will be moved to Infrequent Access Storage for 60 days, and finally, the logs will be transferred to Cold/Glacier Storage for a year. I had to use Fluent Bit for log forwarding to Cloudwatch, and I wrote the script for the above in Terraform. I was successfully able to complete the task and push the code to [Karsun’s] Redux Platform. 

Right now, I am working on implementing a Terraform script to deploy WAF (Web Application Firewall) to the Load Balancers on AWS. WAF protects applications from web-based attacks and hence is very crucial. I even have to do research regarding the pricing of the WAF service to help the company plan budget-wise. So far, the tasks are going well, and I am enjoying the work I am doing here at Karsun.

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

I think the best part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center is the opportunity to solve real-world problems and get mentored by top-notch developers. I even got the opportunity to prepare for my AWS certification because of the Udemy course offered by Karsun. I like meeting with my mentor weekly to discuss various things, like what we did during the weekend or what blockers I am facing. The people are what make the company, and I am delighted to be a part of this wonderful team.

What is your biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

My biggest takeaway from Karsun is the insights I received from this internship. It has helped me to grow both personally and professionally. My entry into the field of DevOps was made possible because of this internship. Initially, I had to do a lot of reading and research to get the tasks done, which helped me learn a lot.

Nikhil’s internship was completed with support from the Karsun Innovation Center and the DevOps Practice Area. The resources in our Innovation Center’s practice areas are available to all Karsun teams. Connect with Nikhil on LinkedIn to learn more about his experience.

Sinduja Sankar’s internship pushed her out of her comfort zone, letting her experience building workflow solutions with new software and automation tools. In this interview, the Georgia Tech graduate student shares her experience working alongside the Karsun Innovation Center (KIC). Learn how working in the fast-paced center enriched Sinduja’s practice as she built a proof of concept using the open source business automation platform Kogito, presented at bi-weekly Innovation Center “Show, Don’t Tell” sessions and grew as an intern at Karsun.

First please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

I am Sinduja! I am currently pursuing my master’s in computer science at Georgia Tech. In my free time, I love exploring museums in the DMV area and trying out new local restaurants with my friends. I also enjoy reading and playing video games.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenge does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

My project involves creating a proof of concept for a federal agency application using Kogito, an open source business automation platform for managing workflows. This would reduce the amount of code written significantly to manage the automation of workflows. The task involved understanding the existing workflow in a large code repository and redesigning the workflow iteratively with other developers. The workflow automates processes and decision-making, thereby making it more efficient and adaptive.

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

The best part about working at Karsun is the supportive atmosphere. I am genuinely grateful to be part of such a wonderful group. The “Show, Don’t Tell” sessions which happen every two weeks are very interesting and give us a bird’s-eye view of what everyone is working on. I also really appreciate the intellectually stimulating nature of every project undertaken by KIC and the opportunity to work with the latest tools and technologies.

What is your biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

As an intern, my key takeaway is that change is constant. Throughout the internship, I’ve experienced various forms of change, from adapting to a new environment to taking up responsibilities out of my comfort zone by experimenting with new software. I am grateful for this experience as it has taught me to be open-minded and adaptable.  

Sinduja’s internship supported work performed by the Karsun Innovation Center. Learn how the Research and Development teams in the center created proof of concepts, prototype solutions and investigate emerging technologies. Connect with Sinduja on LinkedIn to learn more about her internship experience.

Mithran Mohanraj is a junior at George Mason University and a member of the Karsun Innovation Center 2023 Intern Class. As part of his internship, Mithran took on the challenge of developing a prototype application that addresses a hypothetical problem faced by a government agency. In addition to completing this prototype designed to drive engagement with the National Parks Service, he explored mobile app development with enhancements to the Karsun employee app, Konnect. Learn how Mithran connected with the Innovation Center team and deepened his UI/UX practice in this short interview.

First please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

I am studying Computer Science at George Mason University in my Junior year. In my free time, I like to develop games, exercise at the gym, go for jogs outside, and read books.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenge does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

So far in the internship, I have worked on an AppSheet app that was supposed to solve a problem the federal government faces. I made an app that could increase revenue and engagement with the National Parks Service. After finishing that app, I worked on creating a mobile version of the Karsun Konnect web page using AppSheet. This app also receives push notifications from multiple sources including the Brown Bag and Dojos app. It also receives notifications for company-wide announcements. I am also working on an expense request app for HR to use in AppSheet.

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

My favorite part about working at the Karsun Innovation Center is the people. I really enjoy working with everyone and collaborating to create something useful. I also enjoy the opportunity I have been given to learn UI/UX design. It is one of my longtime interests and I am grateful I have an opportunity to learn it professionally.

What is your biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

My biggest takeaway is that working in a professional environment is an incredibly enriching and rewarding experience. It is very different from school and I feel like I am learning a lot of practical skills that will help me in the future.

Mithran’s internship supported work performed by the Karsun Innovation Center. Learn how the Research and Development teams in the center prototype solutions, research emerging technologies and enhance the employee experience at Karsun. Connect with Mithran on LinkedIn to learn more about his time at Karsun. 

Meet Luca Moukheiber. A rising college sophomore, he is a member of the 2023 Karsun Innovation Center Internship Program. He worked alongside artificial intelligence (AI), federal acquisitions and data solutions experts as part of a project team developing a federal contracts management proof of concept. In the interview below, we learn more about Luca, his project using a Large Language Model to generate code and his favorite parts about working with our Innovation Center. 

First please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

I am an Echols Scholar about to start my second year at the University of Virginia, where I am majoring in computer science. I enjoy hiking, biking, paddle boarding, and playing the guitar in my free time.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenge does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

As part of the Karsun initiative to explore the integration of generative AI into application development, I developed a file attachment feature used in a proof of concept application using Large Language Model (LLM) technology to generate code for certain parts of my project. I created a custom interface for users to upload, view, or delete documents as part of a reporting system. My project solves the challenge of improving efficiencies and reducing costs associated with federal contract management. This task involved working on both the front and back end to store documents in a database and the cloud. Leveraging AI to reduce manual code writing reduces development time and improves efficiency. The technologies that I used in this project were GPT-4, Angular, Spring Boot, Postgres, AWS S3, LocalStack, Jest, Nx, Flyway, and Podman.

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

My favorite part of working in the Innovation Center is having the opportunity to develop cutting-edge solutions to novel problems. The projects evolve rapidly, with ample space for creative thinking and problem-solving. I appreciate Karsun’s emphasis on intern learning. I am currently studying to become certified as an AWS Developer Associate.

What is the biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

My biggest takeaway is that keeping an open mind, being adaptable, and continuously learning are core software development skills. I came in with no Angular experience, and understanding how everything worked together in the codebase was difficult at first. However, by taking courses, I saw how the material I learned applied to the real project I was working on, enabling me to build my own feature. There were also situations where I had to change my approach because I ran into blockers, which took me extra time to figure out but strengthened my problem-solving abilities.

Luca’s internship was supported by the Karsun Solutions Innovation Center Practice Areas. Learn more about Karsun’s Acquisitions Management Modernization solutions. Connect with Luca on LinkedIn.

Karsun’s internship program returned this year, adding a second cohort for exceptional high school and early college STEM students. These two cohorts took the next steps in preparing for their future careers with this program that embeds interns inside the Karsun Innovation Center. The summer programs invited students to imagine the future of government, complete technical certifications, dive into AI/ML and collaborate with experts. 

Nurturing Future Technology Leaders

Here careers grow as Karsun grows. This year that included an expansion to our intern program, enabling that experience to start earlier for high school and college students in their freshman and sophomore years of college. These Student Interns also worked directly with the Karsun Innovation Center and were mentored by previous graduates of the intern program. 

A key focus of the program was imaging the future of technology in government. Working in pairs, our Student Interns picked project topics ranging from digital twins to robotic process automation (RPA). The interns researched these technologies throughout their ten-week program submitting a research paper and presentation at the end of the course.

The intern track for advanced college students, recent grads and graduate students also offered opportunities to work with mentors while building their technical skills. These interns were assigned mentors from one of the KIC Practice Areas. These experts from the Development, Lean, DevSecOps, Data and Solution Practices helped these interns assess and select programs from our Karsun Academy professional development courses. As a result, several members of the class ended their internship with AWS certifications and other credentials.   

“Karsun encourages and supports its workers in obtaining cloud certification in Amazon Web Services for the advancement of their careers is another thing I admire.” – Mayank Tamakuwala

Building with Karsun Innovators

In addition to their research projects, the Student Interns worked in teams on two challenge projects. In one project, they developed a prototype to solve a hypothetical challenge for federal government agencies. The second challenge was a code-a-thon designed to demonstrate the application of data science concepts. In this challenge, the teams applied a digital twin to determine if different images contained pictures of a collapsed lung.

The more experienced interns, worked on real projects under development in the Innovation Center’s R&D unit. Their data science project focused on building a synthetic data platform to improve the security of PII in data modeling. This project culminated with the synthetic data team presenting their findings at an organization-wide Innovation Townhall. 

Some members of the intern program also worked with Karsun’s internal digital workplace team. They assisted with the Karsun Kollaborate project. This initiative examines new ways Karsun team members can connect and collaborate outside of their current delivery teams. Some of these projects were also data focused, using tools like Google Data Studio to improve operational efficiency at Karsun. This was also an opportunity to try low-code/no-code development with to add enhancements to the digital workplace experience.

Collaborating and Presenting to Colleagues

They also participated in Show Don’t Tell sessions, a cornerstone of the internship program. In these weekly meetings, attended by Karsun team members throughout the innovation center, interns demoed and presented their accomplishments. This is also an opportunity to receive feedback from other units in the KIC outside of their practice mentors. At the final Show Don’t Tell event, both groups of interns demoed their projects and presented results from their government technology research projects to Karsun leaders.

“I always felt like my opinion was respected at meetings, even in a room full of people that were far more experienced than me. I also had a great time working with the team, everyone was so willing to help each other and it felt like a comfortable, collaborative environment.” – Akhilesh Varanasi

“I enjoyed the biweekly ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ meetings where I learned about other ongoing projects at KIC. I was introduced to new ideas and tools.” – Sanjana M Moodbagil

Our advanced Summer Interns earned professional certifications, imagined new uses for synthetic data and created tools by Karsun Teams. Meanwhile, our Student Interns experimented with the application of AI/ML, development and other technical concepts as they celebrated innovation while bringing visibility to these future leaders and experts. Through the Karsun Innovation Center, Karsun Academy and other resources, we empower our teams to find their next opportunity to grow at any stage in their education or career.

Every year the Karsun Innovation Center (KIC) hosts a new Summer Intern class for college students in their junior year. Mentored by KIC practice advocates, they work alongside delivery teams prototyping solutions for real-life initiatives developed by Karsun. This year we introduced a new Student Intern class. Composed of exceptional high school and college students, these internship participants completed a series of technical challenges over a ten-week program. Additionally, each Student Intern selected an emerging technology topic to research throughout their time at Karsun.

Exploring Technology in Government

This new internship invited STEM students to explore different modern software development, cloud and data solutions implementations. Working in pairs, The ten-week session opened with a challenge designed to help students think about how the federal government uses technology. In this code-a-thon, students built a web application with the potential to solve a common government technical problem.

Applying Machine Learning

Similar to the Summer Interns working on the synthetic data portal, the Student Interns also had an opportunity to work on ML/AI-related work as part of their internships. In that technology challenge, students trained machine learning models to identify images of collapsed lungs. Working alongside Innovation Center experts is a key benefit of our intern programs.

Bringing It Together

The student interns wrapped up their session with a research paper. They selected from a list of topics ranging from robotic process automation (RPA) to digital twins. They explored beyond the industries where Karsun performs work to understand how these tools are implemented in exciting ways across the government.

The student interns also worked with mentors throughout the program. The mentor to each student is a graduate from a previous intern cohort and a current Karsun employee. Just as we are excited to see the careers pursued by our graduating Summer Interns, we are also excited to see what the future holds for these emerging STEM experts.

About the Karsun Innovation Center Internship Programs

The Karsun Innovation Center hosts an annual summer internship program for computer science or equivalent students, typically in their junior year of college. Occasionally, internship opportunities are available for recent graduates. In 2022, the center added a Student Internship cohort to support exceptional high school and early college students. Information on current internship openings is available at KarsunCareers.com.

When our leadership revealed its vision for the next decade at the start of 2020 they could not anticipate the challenges of a global pandemic. Nevertheless, even then Karsun had already created the infrastructure to allow our teams to grow remotely together. This year we celebrated continued recognition as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. As we scaled in this remote environment we also affirmed our commitment to team member development welcoming new intern cohorts, sponsoring professional development programs, and introducing virtual training programs.

Longtime Programs Adapt to Virtual Work

Through New Remote Program Interns Grow with Karsun

Through our Karsun Innovation Center (KIC) Internship Program each of our interns has a voice in the future of our company. These interns support the Research and Development teams rolling out new tools and processes across our organization. Interns learn and grow during their time with us. Shadowing team members in our Innovation Center and customer delivery teams, they participate in cross-functional projects, sharing their insights with teams across the company.

Coffee with Leadership Goes Online

Launched in 2017, Coffee with Leadership is a longstanding monthly tradition at Karsun. During this open discussion, executive leadership hosts a small gathering with frontline team members. In this open forum anyone may share their experiences, make suggestions or discuss opportunities to improve work at Karsun. This year saw a transition to a remote format for Coffee with Leadership and the addition of a second monthly Brunch with Leadership group expanding the diversity of feedback across management levels. We included these breakfasts in Karsun’s new remote environment to ensure all employees have the opportunity to contribute to our vision for growth.

DataOps NoVa Launches Virtual Series

Hosted by Karsun’s Data Practice, DataOps NoVa is a monthly Meetup designed to introduce best practices and tools to the data, analytics, and IT community. Its DataOps 101 series was among the last of Karsun’s in-person training events at our Herndon, Virginia headquarters. This first series included discussions and demonstrations from DataOps vendors and an introduction to data encryption using middleware components presented by our Innovation Center.

StreamSets DataOps Workshop in Herndon, Virginia

After taking a short break from in-person events, the Meetup returned virtually in August. The new series will cover topics like data fabric, analytics foundations for MLOps, and vendor demos. The new format also allowed the team to expand outside Virginia hosting data experts from around the world. These new virtual sessions are published on the DataOps NoVa Meetup Page.

Karsun Leaders Grow Through Industry Groups and Fellowships

Karsun Executives Recognized as Industry Leaders

As Karsun celebrated its tenth year in operation and its tenth year supporting the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) our President, Terry Miller, was recognized in part for his leadership within the organization. In March 2020 Miller was named to FCW‘s prestigious Federal 100 list. This list includes 100 men and women who personify what’s possible in federal IT. He also served as the 2019 Industry Chair of ACT-IAC’s highly regarded Partners Program. This training and professional development curriculum pairs “rising star” leaders from government and industry. New under Miller’s leadership, the group formed three challenge teams to provide direct solutions to government agencies (GSA, NASA, SBA). He is also a graduate of the Partners Program and was the Chair of the Management of Change (MOC) event in 2013.

Also early in 2020, the College of Engineering Guindy Alumni Association of North America (CEGAANA) named Karsun CEO Sundar Vaidyanathan its 2020 Chairman of the Board. Sundar is committed to making the organization a self-sustaining entity. His ultimate goal is strengthening collaboration between students, the college and the alumni network.

Satish Alluri Graduates from Selective Fellowship Program

Meet Satish Alluri, the Deputy Program Manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Grants Management Modernization initiative. He graduated in 2020 from the selective ACT- IAC Voyagers Professional Development fellowship. In September we spotlighted this longtime Karsun team member. Over the course of his career he grew from a Senior Business Analyst to a leader in both our DHS FEMA and GSA programs. Learn how Satish grew with us here.

Karsun Concludes 2020 with Virtual Team Recognition Events

Both our FEMA and KIC celebrated successes transitioning from in-person to virtual work through team recognition at the end of 2020. While our FEMA program hosted team lunches, our Innovation Center recognized our Karsun Academy and Practice Area mentors during an Innovation All Hands event in November.

As an organization Karsun Solutions also celebrated with a holiday lunch in December 2020. Every team member had lunch delivered to them as Karsun looked back on contract wins, team events and other small victories throughout the year. It was a final opportunity for our leadership to say “Go Team Karsun! Thank you for all your hard work!”

Solving difficult problems drives the work at Karsun Solutions. One of those difficult problems included transitioning Karsun’s internship program, formerly based out of its Herndon, Virginia Headquarters, to a fully remote program. In this new virtual internship format, interns join a mentorship centered program designed to keep them connected and innovating even as they work remotely.

At Karsun Solutions the Internship Program is affiliated with the Karsun Innovation Center or KIC. As part of their virtual internship, each participant pairs up with a mentor from the KIC. Beyond introducing them to an innovative IT modernization culture, mentors provide continuous feedback so that interns may further develop and improve their skills.

Building a Digital Workplace with Karsun Konnect

As members of the Innovation Center, interns will envision the future of remote work. They will work directly with Karsun’s new digital workplace initiative, Karsun Konnect. This is a real-world application, designed for Karsun employees, which is created and maintained by the KIC. Upon completion, Konnect will include both an InnerSource library and provide workflow enhancements to the corporate functions serving Karsun teams.

Their work will involve collaborating with various stakeholders within the Operations, Talent, Human Resources, and Business Development teams, to identify areas of digital transformation. As part of this experience, interns will identify business requirements. Then they will learn to implement low-cost and efficient solutions within the identified constraints. Based on the business needs and feasibility, they next select appropriate software solutions. These solutions might include chatbots and other applications developed on no-code/low-code frameworks available under the Konnect platform.

An Immersive Innovation Center Experience

Interns will also participate in daily remote stand-ups and demo their projects weekly to Innovation Center leadership. Although remote these interns will also have the opportunity to present and engage with Karsun’s monthly virtual Innovation Town Halls. They may also participate in virtual training through monthly dojos and brown bags hosted by the KIC.

Some may continue their projects after completing their program. Graduates of three previous intern classes now continue their projects in the Karsun Innovation Center as full-time employees. Several of these former internship participants plan to participate as mentors or advisors for this year’s class. The KIC internship program is one of several outreach events designed to engage future IT professionals. In addition to engaging in other college hiring programs the organization previously sponsored a senior capstone project at George Mason University and hackathons at the University of Oklahoma and University of Southampton. Karsun accepts internship applications in the spring.