Creative Interns Redesign Hostel

One of our host organisations, Abigail's Hostel in Dublin city centre, converted from a hotel to a hostel earlier this year, and is now planning to revamp the interior. Dan, an interior design intern from the UK, grabbed this project and researched, planned, measured, sketched and created the following design proposal for the business owners:


Dan also proposed creative redesigns for the other two hostels in the AAA Group, preparing similar 3D presentations using software he selected, Google Sketch-Up.

As Dan's internship placement came to a close, he prepared his files, software and research to hand over to Alice, a textile design graduate, also from the UK. Alice continued with the project, visiting hostels virtually and in person, researching materials and obtaining samples, refining the details to produce mood boards, budgets and options for the project.

Sample mood board, which was backed up with costs, samples, providers and so on

A win-win situation for all involved, Dan and Alice got to apply their knowledge and improve their professional skills in a real and worthwhile project, while the host organisation gained a quirky, innovative interior design, based on thorough research, and ready to implement.

Star Intern Creates Web 2.0 Content

A great example of how interns can contribute to their host companies is the video produced for our company by Veronica, an intern from Spain.

We were keen to include interactive Web 2.0 content in our marketing strategy (hence this blog...) and asked Veronica to conduct some online research in this area, in particular video sharing e.g. YouTube.

Veronica worked on ideas for content, based on our criteria of capturing the experience of her group in Ireland, and conveying for our business partners and potential future internship candidates the experience of an internship in Ireland:



With a little support and guidance, Veronica researched and selected free video editing software VideoSpin, created and compiled content and uploaded the video to YouTube. On her own initiative, she set up an MSN mailing group and Picasa account to facilitate image sharing and communication with her group.

Veronica is typical of the type of individual participating in the Irish Education Partners internship programmes in that Internet technologies, and in particular Web 2.0, are second nature. As such, they represent a great opportunity for host companies to test the (generally free) Web 2.0 waters to see how they may be exploited to promote their businesses.