Internship Experience

In the summer of 2007 I took an Internship position with a student group premised on students performing Engineering Projects In Community Service in Volos, Greece. The available projects ranged from development of a power system to replace the diesel engines used on Greek farm, to the analysis of a reconstruction of the famous Argo from Greek Myth to determine feasibility of the trip. My randomly assigned project was somewhat different. We were assigned to a Greek children’s prison with the task of creating a computer infrastructure and educational system. It was certainly not what I expected when I signed up. After spending a few days with the “inmates” at the run down prison I was driven personally to provide a solution for these children.

During this internship I grew greatly as a person. As team leader of my 5 person team I poured my heart and soul into the project sometimes working 20 hour days. At the end of the project, we had secured an internet commitment from a local university, gotten computers donated from local organizations, raised awareness with the local community and government about the prison. Using open source programs, I designed an operating system that acts as an advanced framework providing access to educational programs allowing the student to chose from a wide range of areas of study from a focus on simple literacy to online technical courses in motorbike repair and computer education. This framework can be used for years to come to turn a prison into a school. We lobbied to change the classification of the prison from the “Volos Prison for Non-Violent Youth” to the “Volos Institute for the Education of Minors.” Through our engineering knowledge, we changed the lives of countless children now, and in the future.