My name is Anirudh Mazumder, and I am a rising senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science. I have participated in the 2024 AnnieRuth Foundation’s Summer Internship Program. Throughout the course part of the program, I learned the skills necessary for working in real-world work environments through monthly meetings with experts in these fields. Additionally, the program showed me the immense impact of giving back to my community by bringing in professionals who can detail the different ways they have made a difference in their communities. After completing the course, I was able to participate in a remote summer internship with MAD-learn. I followed my passion to develop applications that can help human lives using skills in diverse domains, including computer science, artificial intelligence, and more.
MAD-learn is a company that strives to teach students throughout the world the fundamentals of application development, how to pitch and explain their work, and teach students about the possibilities that modern-day technology can have on everyone. Throughout my experience, I have had the incredible opportunity to work and interact directly with the MAD-learn team, which has developed the platform from the chief executive officer to the senior software engineers. Working hands-on with the team that is directly developing and pushing the platform forward has been eye-opening, as it has shown me the inner workings of software development companies that are constantly developing new technologies that can help revolutionize the world. While part of the team, I worked on a few projects related to all aspects of software development. When I first entered the organization, I had the opportunity to test their current platform and explore the unique features they offer their customers and students throughout the world. I was also given the task of scripting comments and feedback on the platform, enabling me to help contribute to new ideas that could help develop MAD-learn further and make their current product better; this also showed me the process of taking a product and truly exploring the different features to give constructive feedback. I was then allowed to look into the actual software development that is happening inside of the company, by receiving coding sets that I could help debug and improve upon, I was able to help create coding sets that would help users in the future who would like example applications, while also working on my HTML, CSS, and JS skills. The MAD-learn team also recently released their first iteration of an AI agent that could help users ideate when developing applications on the platform. This feature has been particularly interesting to me because AI is one of the fields in which I have done a lot of work through academic research. As a result, I was allowed to discuss with the Senior Software Engineers and Product Manager who have been working on developing the platform ways I could contribute to improving the platform and diving into applying AI algorithms to the company’s solutions. Furthermore, the MAD-learn team enabled me to work with the Curriculum Development team to create curricula that could help teach students about the impact of AI and how to use it responsibly, as this has been one of my focuses and really enables me to tap into my love for teaching others about this transformative technology.
Overall, my internship experience with MAD-learn has been nothing short of incredible, from getting to directly interact with the team that has built this platform from the ground up and witnessing the amount of work and dedication that goes into developing a platform that genuinely strives to help students throughout the world, to get hands-on experience with creating their platform using my computer science skills. Additionally, this opportunity has given me a chance to expand my horizons from just being passionate about technological solutions to help humans but also finding ways that can help others understand and learn these technologies so more people can contribute to the world of technology, which requires diverse inputs to develop the best solutions for all people. I would love to thank the AnnieRuth Foundation for allowing me to experience real-world working environments while developing skills integral to being an avid part of professional discourse!