“I wish those internships would be easier to find”. That’s about the thought process that went through our heads when we were starting this platform. As two ambitious high school students living outside of United States, finding research opportunities in STEM such as summer programs or internships was almost impossible. Hours on the internet, tens of opened tabs and all of that just to in the end find out you are not eligible, whether that was because of your citizenship, age or any of the hundred possible reasons. And that’s why Chance is here, an easy to use platform, giving you access to dozens of internships in all field of STEM, all age groups and includes both U.S citizens and internationals, but today we would like to take you on a journey explaining how it all began.

What started as an abstract idea in a small talk over coffee soon became a huge part of our lives. Complaining on the limitations you face as an international when applying internships, we eventually decided to stop debating and rather go and try change it. One of the co-founders being a graphic designer and the other one a machine learning intern, we had all we needed to build the website and bring it to you within the course of several months. Sounds easier than it was as every page of the website went through endless number of changes and after approximately 4 months of work day-and-night we were ready to go live.

We had to hunt down opportunities one by one, building a database of dozen of internships and summer camps throughout three continents, creating the backbone on which Chance stands. Doing the hours and hours of googling so that you don’t have to, we were so far able to attract hundreds of high school students who want to do more but don’t know where to start. Almost immediately after the launch, we closed our first partnership with Scholar Launch, allowing people that apply through Chance save 5% when applying to one of the tens of incredible opportunities they have to offer.

While the website gained some attention and was running, there was still more and more work to be done which is why we decided to hire two volunteers, one for writing these blogs and the other to help with the development and coding. While both are an excellent contribution to the team, we still have a long way to go and are constantly looking for volunteers to become valuable members of the team and help the company grow. Whether it is a social media manager, a skilled programer or any other skill you believe we deem valuable, we are happy to welcome you to the team (in case of interest email: [email protected]).

With all of this behind us, it’s still just the very beginning. We are starting to build a new application system, hoping to eventually allow you to apply to all internships in one place, making applying easier than ever. Something we like to call the “Common App of summer camps”, making it a standardized process, thus replacing the tens of random documents and links from all over the place. Additionally, acknowledging the lacking culture of summer research programs for high schoolers within Europe, we aim to create our own internships under Chance. Starting with Slovakia we hope to work with leading universities in the country, eventually balancing the playing field for international students when applying to world-class institutions.

So, want to join us or have any questions? Reach out to [email protected]!