Intern stories — part I
For the past five months, Triple has been a home to eleven (!) interns. Developers, marketers, analysts or designers; some of the internships had the purpose of writing a thesis, others gained more and new experiences.
We believe that everyone has contributed something special. Some did a groundbreaking research, others inspired us with their fresh mindset or skills. In these months they've created memories, stepped out of their comfort zone, and worked on their skills. So, how did our interns exactly experience these past six months? In this first blog, Noukka, Thijs, Maarten, Daan, and Maartje share their stories with us, to inspire you too.
Noukka, UI/UX Design intern
After working at Triple as a full-time designer for the past two years, it was finally time for me to graduate from Communication and Multimedia Design in Utrecht. In order to be able to graduate, I had to complete two projects in three months: one was to learn more about a specific role, the other was a more traditional graduation project.
The role I specified in was project manager. I chose this so I could learn more about the process and structure of projects and to see more of the client side. I’ve had a wonderful mentor in Diede, one of Triple’s project managers. I started this project shadowing her, visiting clients and attending meetings. After a couple days of that, I took the initiative to turn Triple’s social media and marketing into a project. Here I worked together with Benjamin and Anna to bring structure and goals to the project. I set up weekly stand-ups, an Asana board and worked together with the team to constantly get a step further into professionalizing our social media and structuring our marketing. As this would eventually be 40% of my grade, I had only two days a week to focus on this particular project. It was really valuable to learn what a project manager does and get tools organize a project and team.
My other project was for Videoland, for which I would do research about personalization and eventually decide on a concept and prototype to test this. My goal was to create a concept that would distinguish Videoland from its competitors and keep its customers on the platform for a longer time.
I researched the video on demand providers in the Netherlands, compared them to each other and identified ways to differentiate. I also did research on personalization and its effects on user experience, customer loyalty, and satisfaction.
To get to know more about Videoland and video on demand users I held a survey and did extensive interviews with 6 participants. Based on their answers, I created three possible medium independent concepts. The final concept was mainly based on the premise that users choose new things to watch by asking their friends for recommendations. By adding a social aspect to the platform and combining this with a better recommendation algorithm, it will be easier for the user to find relevant content and connect with their friends in a new way.
I really enjoyed doing this project, as it allowed to really dive into the research and come up with concepts based on those results. I value a user-centered approach, and this project was all about the user.
Sadly, the end of this project means the end of my time at Triple. But after more than two years at this wonderful company, I’m ready to take on the next challenge and become a better designer.
Thijs, Developer intern
To fulfill my second year of the study Application Developer at ROC Horizon College in Alkmaar, I did an internship at Triple. I have to admit that I really loved my internship. The first day, the other interns and I got a tour through the company and then got a supervisor assigned. Together with another intern, I got a desk assigned which I shared with another intern.
After meeting my supervisor, I got my very own project that I could work on during my internship. I was the only developer working on this project which meant I had a lot of freedom regarding the coding and the project style. I could always count on the help of my supervisor to help me out with a problem or a question.
I was the only developer working on this project which meant I had a lot of freedom regarding the coding and the project style.
I've learned a lot of new things during my internship. For example how to properly document my code, planning of work, how to work with control systems like Git, and to write better and cleaner code. I worked on my first project for approximately fourteen weeks. And after that, I received various smaller projects to work on. For example, I made a tool to store pieces of code that allows you to send this to other people with just a link.
Something that was also a lot of fun was my trip to the Triple's servers. During that trip, I learned a lot about how the servers are hosted and managed. Just last week Triple offered me a job so I can work during the summer break and whenever I have time during my final school year. I really enjoyed my internship at Triple, and if I could, I would do it again.
Maarten, Marketing and Communications intern at Beyond Sports
When I started looking for an internship, I found Beyond Sports pretty fast. Beyond Sports is a subsidiary company of Triple and creates Virtual Reality solutions for professional sports clubs. The team existed of ‘only’ five passionate men, and they were looking for a marketing and communications intern. My role was an ideal fit because I have a passion for sports and in particular football.
To be honest, I had to adjust to this organization. The team was relatively small and consisted of people that go on business trips regularly, leaving me as one of the few in the office. Despite not having the usual team around, Triple aims to bring their employees together by organizing events and having open-minded people around.
In the past five months, I’ve worked on various projects related to marketing and communication. Some of the things I worked on were writing news articles, establishing relationships with relevant media, writing press releases, and creating relevant marketing activities.
Triple also gave me the opportunity to become the first esport player of the company. Every Friday, I played FIFA on a professional level. Besides playing FIFA, I’ve also become a part of the esports department. This department will be shaping the future of esports.
Besides my day-to-day activities, I wrote my thesis and did the necessary research. My thesis was focused on a probable move to the Chinese market, exploring the opportunities and threats. Despite it being a cool subject to write my thesis about, it is not finished yet. My graduation will probably follow in September.
Taking everything into consideration, I have had a wonderful time at Triple. A very close team with lots of people that are fun to work with, who think alike, and share a passion for football. One heck of an atmosphere, a cool office, lots of FIFA, table tennis, and more.
Daan, Unity intern
I spent the last five months doing my graduation internship at Triple. My assignment during this internship was on behalf of Triple’s daughter company Beyond Sports.
When I started the internship, Beyond Sports’ current application to simulate real football matches in Virtual Reality didn’t have any animation for player actions. They could add the animations by hand, but this would take a very long time. I have researched two methods for recognizing the player actions from the provided data and automatically added them to the file the application uses to simulate the matches. Five months later, the recognition system I developed, can recognize the player actions correctly with 81,9 percent.
Besides recognizing the player actions, I researched how the animations could look better in the simulation. In the simulation, it often happened that the ball would not connect with the player when he would, for example, kick the ball. To fix this issue, I overwrote the position data of the ball to connect it with the player. This makes the simulation look much more natural than before.
Table tennis during the lunch was incredibly fun and was something I was looking forward to each day.
During my internship, I learned a lot about Artificial Intelligence. This subject is one of the methods I researched for my assignment, recognizing player action from the given data. I know a lot more about how AI works, what it can do and what is necessary to use it.
I really enjoyed my time at Triple. The guys I worked with in the Unity team are great company and make the days go by very quickly. Table tennis during the lunch was incredibly fun and was something I was looking forward to each day. Also, the Friday afternoon drinks were nice as well because we would get a drink and play table tennis with a lot of people.
Maartje, Data analyst intern
In order to fulfill the bachelor Business IT and Management, I wrote a thesis at Triple. My thesis contains a research about a radio application called Sidestep Radio. In the past 20 weeks, I worked in the analytics department.
I had a great time during my internship. Triple is a dynamic and educational company. Despite the fact that it was a very independent research, and writing a thesis is something you have to do on your own, I’ve met a lot of friendly people. Triple has a lovely company culture, I always enjoyed coming to the office. In order to write my thesis, I needed to concentrate. On some days, it could be very noisy. Fortunately, Triple provides the space to distance yourself for a while. On other days, I would be part of the noise.
The goal of my research was to align aspects of the information technology environment of Sidestep Radio to the information requirements of the radio segment. Currently, the radio stations don’t gather enough data of the behavior and features of their target audience. In order to attract and keep the audience, the radio stations could use this data to optimize the radio programs. Sidestep Radio is an application that is able to collect behavioral data and process this into information dashboards. These dashboards can contribute to achieving the strategic goals of the radio segment.
Therefore, I researched documentation regarding the SideStep Radio project and held interviews with three different radio stations. I chose the stations BNR, Qmusic, and NH. These radio stations represent the news, commercial and regional orientated aspects of the radio segment. After gathering this information, I analyzed the differences between the current situation and the requirements. These results were used as input for designing the optimized information environment. I designed an entity relationship diagram, an architectural model, and a data warehouse model. If you wish to know the precise results of my research, feel free to contact me at m.mosch@wearetriple.com
Do you want to learn more about our interns? Check out the second blog, in which Sam, Anna, Tim and Lloyd share their stories. Or do you want to be part of the Triple family? Check out our vacancies and find your dream job or internship!
