Closing Note

When we first sat down to talk about what would later become ORIGIN, we had no idea what building an internship program would entail and whether it was even possible to do so in a month’s time. We were obsessed with the idea that, despite everything else going in the world, increasing access to opportunities is critical for promoting personal growth and professional development.

We never imagined we would welcome over 250 students from across 50 universities to ORIGIN this summer. We are incredibly grateful to every person that has joined us on this crazy adventure.

Thank you to our community for being the first to believe in our vision and for volunteering your time and expertise, to our students for entrusting us with your summer and both building and learning alongside us, and to our team for spending countless hours behind the scenes to help make this experience possible. We would also especially like to thank Nikita Gupta (Symba), Michael Colella (Online Career Fair), Amy Orlov (Forte), and Zach Shulman (Entrepreneurship at Cornell) for their endless support this summer.

Thomas Edison once said, “I have learned fifty thousand ways it cannot be done and therefore I am fifty thousand times nearer the final successful experiment.” After heavy consideration, we have made the difficult decision to not continue ORIGIN beyond this summer. Although the virtual nature of our program and the unprecedented circumstances of this summer allowed us to provide this opportunity to a wide reach of students, we recognize that the structure of ORIGIN is unsustainable and difficult to scale, and maintaining a program like this requires far more time and resources then we can afford to give at this stage in our lives.

In celebration of all that was accomplished this summer, we have relaunched our website and Notion to showcase the projects our students built this summer. We have also created a library of free resources for any student interested in entrepreneurship and venture as a testimony to our mission of promoting innovative thinking through creative and accessible opportunities for professional growth.

As we reflect on this experience, we are more convinced than ever that the future is incredibly bright. We have learned so much over the past few months and leave this summer more inspired than ever. Thank you for starting something with us.

Best,

ORIGIN Team