Hi everyone. For those that don’t know me, my name is Devon Thomas and I was a summer intern for the DataEthics4All AI Society from June 2021 – September 2021. The reason I am writing this article is to take you on my journey from these past two months to help you understand why being an intern at DataEthics4All is not only amazing in the opportunities they give, but also in the skills and friendships that come after the end of the internship. I have been involved with DataEthics4All since November of 2020 to gain volunteer hours when I applied to be a tutor and met with Shilpi Agarwal, one of the nicest people I have met to this day. We immediately clicked and she offered me a place in their tutoring society and together we partnered with our school to find students with low-income backgrounds that show significant academic backgrounds. 

As time went on, I knew DataEthics4All would play a big part in my life as me and Shilpi Agarwal formed a trust with one another to help grow the DataEthics4All society. It wasn’t until May 19th, that I would find myself taking the next step forward. Mrs. Agarwal had sent out an email to me asking if I was interested in doing a summer internship being eight hours a day, five days a week. Instantly, I knew how amazing of an opportunity this would be to show colleges my hard work ethic and commitment, and had no second thought about the hours needed each week to complete the internship. Knowing the applications would be competitive, I went the extra mile and made sure I would do everything in my power to have all the necessary requirements to get the position. 

After proving my research abilities and ability to learn new things, Mrs. Agarwal granted me the internship but suggested I should base it on the AI Society. At the time, I had no clue what it was going to be and only knew Mrs. Agarwal was excited to showcase it by the end of summer to the public. So, the journey began. After school officially ended in my junior year of high school, I met with Shilpi Agarwal and a few other interns selected on a Zoom call and we established a goal of 100 AI products published by the end of summer in high quality. Since I never had any work experience prior, I had no clue about the amount of work needed to complete an internship and the things expected of me. I left the Zoom call thinking Mrs. Agarwal would be my supervisor only to find out a man named Kevin Dias would be the head supervisor for my internship over the summer. Kevin was on the Zoom call at the time, so I was still happy someone with high credentials would be supervising. 

I went to sleep early that day and when I woke up, I started my first day more nervous than any activity I have ever done before and vowed I would not give up. The first week was very challenging for me as spending eight hours a day in the summer while the heat raged on was tedious and research-intensive. These pages were published on WordPress, a website builder, which required a special SEO solution for each AI product we would feature for different AI companies. What I loved most about these AI products was it was not the top-brand names we featured like Google Cloud or IBM Watson, rather lesser-known products like h20.ai driverless ai. This helped me overcome my challenge of doing the work for long periods of time because I knew this would help create awareness for different AI products that are revolutionizing the world as you read this. 

The first month of the internship was standard: do the work required for the day (3-4 ai products daily) and make sure you are spending time wisely. The real problems began towards the end of July when my responsibilities began to increase day after day. One day, Kevin invited me to a Zoom call to discuss some issues that have been occurring in my internship. At the time I had about 50 AI products pending ready to be published by either Kevin or Mrs. Agarwal, however, Kevin felt I wasn’t using my time efficiently and told me my first new step in the internship would be to do image optimization which required me to use Photoshop, a skill I never tried before. 

This is where my internship took a turn from what I thought would be the worst, to in reality becoming one of the most important moments in life. Before this Zoom call, Kevin and I only had positive things to report and with this sudden new change, I simply was skeptical and was afraid of taking on a new challenge. Kevin assumed I was comfortable taking on the challenge of image optimization and that I would collect all the product screenshots needed to do so, but I told him otherwise. This is where miscommunication sparked the shift and Kevin and I spent over an hour in the call discussing plans if I refused to do image optimization. I said I wasn’t talented enough, but Kevin told me something that I will never forget. “I want to stop you right there Devon. Saying you are not talented before even trying, is very dangerous. It could really affect your mental health and think of yourself in a negative light,” Kevin said in a soft tone. It was here I understood that the people I was working with really cared about me and wanted me to succeed beyond the internship. 

I still was hesitant to agree, however, after the Zoom call I agreed to the image optimization and Kevin was ecstatic. However, the damage was already done. Mrs. Agarwal heard of the conflict and wanted to do a Zoom with me and Kevin later that day. I thought it would be only positive, but I sure was wrong about that. At first, our meeting was starting off good and Mrs. Agarwal even commended the hard work I have done over this summer, but then she informed me of complaints about the work I was completing each day and my inability to take on a new challenge. She was blunt and strict, a side I never knew she had and explained there were three types of people and she wanted me to become the person who worked the hardest and could still successfully be recognized. When I was told I was not on that level, truthfully, my heart was shattered as everyone else has always told me in my life that I was always on top. 

She ended the meeting on a good note saying she would be happy to write me a letter of recommendation and help me throughout my college years, but I would have to prove myself first. She also set a new goal of 150-200 AI products by the end of summer which stressed me out further even though I knew it was my mission to get it done. From there, everything changed as I worked even harder optimizing all the previous 50 AI products and doing 6-7 AI products daily with image optimization included. I overcame the challenge of trying new things and learned more about Photoshop in the process. 

My favorite part of the internship was how understanding Kevin and Mrs. Agarwal were. I needed to go on vacation with my family and since there was no way out of leaving, I asked Mrs. Agarwal if I could go away and she offered to extend my internship another week and for me to not do any work over the break. This happened again when I needed to take my last SAT at the end of August and needed to extend my internship another week since I was going to take off the week of the SAT and Mrs. Agarwal and Kevin happily did while wishing me luck on my SAT. While the internship was coming to an end, only a few more new steps were incorporated. 

To start, I would finally get to add top brand name AI products like Google and IBM to broaden our AI society. Next, I would be given the task and trust to actually publish and make the AI products public. Because of my limited access to my account in WordPress, I couldn’t fully publish any AI products, but with an upgrade thanks to Mrs. Agarwal, I could now finish the final piece of the puzzle. Mrs. Agarwal decided after we reached 100 AI products to focus on these 100 and get them published instead of doing 150 and not having them published before the internship ended. 

One saying I will never forget from Mrs. Agarwal is “quality over quantity.” She repeated this all throughout my internship and it couldn’t be more true. I made sure for the final week of my internship to honor this saying and I can proudly say I ended my internship with 100 product pages fully published all done on my own which can be found and viewed at https://dataethics4all.org/ai-society/. I worked every minute of every hour in the last week and it paid off as Mrs. Agarwal agreed to write me a letter of recommendation and I even gained the Presidential Volunteer Service Award for completing 200 hours of volunteer work during my internship! 

Overall, DataEthics4All has been a monumental help in my personal growth and has given me countless opportunities that I could take advantage of through the AI Society. Working alongside Kevin Dias and Shilpi Agarwal helping advance our AI Society, I have gained essential leadership skills and learned new useful tools such as WordPress and Photoshop in the span of two months being a summer intern. In addition, I got to research and learn about new cutting-edge AI technologies, products, and solutions for the AI Society. This internship was not only a great learning experience but also rewarding that will look great on my college apps. I recommend this internship to anyone looking to take on a new challenge and learn more about how AI revolutionizes the world. I will continue to help advance the AI Society as a volunteer after school each day. Special thanks to Mrs. Agarwal, one of the greatest mentors you will ever have! 

“No matter how hard things seem at first, keep trying. Know that the moment you give up is the moment opportunities are lost. Never be afraid! Never lose hope!” – Devon Thomas