Don’t Panic Labs summer intern Jamison Schuster shows off the fruits of his team’s summer-long project Monday at the University of Nebraska’s Kauffman Center. Photo by Michael Stacy.
As the inaugural Don’t Panic Labs summer internship program drew to a close with presentations on Monday at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Kauffman Center, it became increasingly clear the extent to which the interns had run the asylum for the last three months.
If it wasn’t evident by their sheer numbers alone — Don’t Panic labs, the primary software development arm of Lincoln-based venture capital fund Nebraska Global, brought aboard 24 interns to a company that has 40 full-time employees — or the videos that preceded the interns’ presentations — they alluded to “Chariots of Fire” and “Night at The Roxbury,” among other cinematic classics — then it was clear in the description of the internship program provided by Nebraska Global managing partner Steve Kiene.
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“We tried to do it very differently,” Kiene said. “First and foremost, the scope – getting that many interns. But also treating them as … full-time employees — these are like family here — and giving them a chance to not come in and work on some meaningless task but to come in and say, ‘Go build a business and see where you get.’ “
Monday provided an opportunity to see how far the interns had come, as four teams of interns presented the fruits of their summer-long labors to a crowd of about 60 investors, university faculty and other members of the local business community.
The interns worked for the summer split among four teams: Moriarty, which developed software for use with the motion-sensing Kinect camera; GeekSeeq, a mobile app that utilizes Bluetooth technology to find people within an office; Carnac, an app for locating and managing available parking spaces; and PlanHandler, a platform for organizing and publicizing events.
Kiene said GeekSeeq and Carnac are being implemented by Nebraska Global at the company’s Haymarket offices and the other projects have potential, too. But the expectation, he said, was not necessarily for the teams to launch businesses within 12 weeks. Rather, the hope was for the interns to learn from trying to build businesses in an environment where they were equipped with the right mix of expert guidance and creative breathing room.
“It’s more of a real-world (experience),” intern Mike Varilek said. “They would instruct us and then leave us to do” the work.
For a company that was started last year with the goal of establishing a software stronghold in Nebraska — the slogan “Develop here” is emblazoned on the Nebraska Global logo — the internship program is unquestionably an important tool for piquing the interest of potential future employees.*
“Providing them a chance to see the things that they will have here that they don’t have was … big,” Kiene said. “And I think it’s going to have selfishly an impact on kids staying here – kids wanting to start their own businesses but also, I think, kids choosing the right time to start their business.”
(Left: Spencer Farley, left, and Chris Johnson present for Carnac, their internship project at Don’t Panic Labs. Photo by Michael Stacy.)
That may help explain why, despite Don’t Panic Labs not benefitting from the reimbursements outlined in the Internship Bill, which passed through the state legislature in May but that wasn’t enacted until after Don’t Panic Labs brought its interns aboard, the company was still willing to bring 24 students into the fold for the summer.
“We definitely think it was a good investment,” said Amanda Garner, Nebraska Global’s director of community affairs and public relations.
Kiene said it was also a good learning experience for the company, which will collect feedback from interns and make tweaks to its program for future iterations. One thing Kiene wouldn’t change was the occasional experience of coming into work in the morning to find interns sawing Zs after late nights spent at the office.
“That was kind of cool to see that there’s that kind of passion for what they were working on,” Kiene said. “And the feedback I get from them is, well, it’s cool to have an environment where they can do that. I’m like, well, it’s cool to have kids that are willing to do it.”
For video of the four teams’ presentations, check Silicon Prairie News in the coming days.
* Update (8:15 p.m.) — Nebraska Global’s logo incorporates the phrase “Develop here,” not “Build here” as an early version of the story indicated.
