Google India Tech Intern Connect

- A succinct account

30th of June 2018 witnessed an immense onrush of overwhelming amounts of zeal, fun and learning as we at Google India hosted our annual tech intern connect — an outreach event organised simultaneously at all the four offices connected over a GVC. It saw the participation of over 300 shortlisted tech-interns from across the country. The organising committee was so humbled to host a diversity of ambitious interns, all united in their aspiration to become Googlers!

Here’s a quick account of the action-packed 6 hours:

• The reporting time was 8:30 am. All the attendees were escorted to the venue after the badging where they had breakfast. The attendees were surprised to find bags full of Google swags nestled on their chairs.
• The event kickstarted with a warm welcome by Anjali Thakur, coordinating with the other three locations from Gurgaon. The attendees were made comfortable by encouraging them to participate in a poll of interesting questions about how they were feeling, where they were from, and the like.
• Following this was a 15-minute ice-breaker which was a Beautiful chaos of running around, introductions and light discussions.
• After a lively ice-breaker, we started with a rigorous tech talk session on the “DNA of a good product” delivered by Gandhi Sampath. From elucidating on the cycle of ‘learn, execute and test’ to answering the endless questions of our inquisitive attendees, it was an absolute treat to witness the session and participate in it.
• After 45 minutes of this informative session, we took a 15 minute break before starting with the “Panel Discussion with the Leaders” which was presided over by Anuradha Arora, Dimple Batra, Rajat Bhargava and Rohit A at Bangalore, and Saikat Mitra at Hyderabad.
• In this panel discussion were delivered enriching talks on a variety of agendas — hardware at Google, product excellence, learning to make an impact, focus and open-mindedness, value of communication, developing a rapport with mentors and champions, about diversity, and how crucial it is to Google. It was wonderful to hear about so many different facets of diversity that weren’t limited to culture or gender. The best part was how interactive the session was, the audience kept the discussion vivid with thoughtful questions.
• Post this session, we conducted a quick Energizer and also involved our leaders in it. Swags were awarded to the winners of the Energizer task.
• We then broke for lunch which was preceded by a 30-minute networking session. The participants were encouraged to interact with one another, us interns, the speakers and other full time googlers to get all their doubts answered. We were so elated to interact with them and tell them about the life and culture at Google.
• The sumptuous lunch got our enthusiastic attendees lazy, but we knew exactly how to tackle that. Enter: Improv Session — Google Theatre Club.
• An amazingly enjoyable session on polishing soft skills, confidence and public speaking that taught so much in a happy way. Be it embedding the lesson of “stepping out of comfort zone” in a funny exercise, or teaching how in discussions “Yes, and” >> “No, but” by way of a dramatic act performed impromptu by volunteers from the audience.

With this our event drew to a successful close.

We had promised our attendees a day full of education, exposure and an experience. As they took their leave, we were glad to see their overwhelmed, happy faces that screamed of how we had somewhat met our googly promises. And that sufficed :)