Summer Internship with QuizWorks – Avishek from IIM Ranchi
Daily Winner for: – 5th August 2011
Name of the intern: – Avishek Basu Mallick
Institute: – Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi
Organization interned with: – QuizWorks, Bangalore
Normally, when you are done with your engineering degree and about to join your post graduate degree course or job, you would actually prefer to take a chill pill and relax after all the (supposedly) hard yards you put in for your under-graduate course as well as build up energy levels for an enervating future. But if you are absolutely crazy and have a never-ending passion for knowledge and quizzing, the chances are that in all probability you will land up at QuizWorks.
Now, what exactly is Quizworks? To put it in marketing terms, QuizWorks is India’s leading quiz design and hosting company. To put it in terms of an student intern, it is pure and unadulterated fun. Now most of us who have done an internship in some organization would crib and stick their noses up at the idea of a virtual internship. A virtual internship, as most would say, is just a resume point. I really beg to differ. The time I spent on my QW intern was equally fruitful to the time I had spent on my previous interns as a JNCASR and BARC Research Fellow. And, I dare say it was more fun. Now you would ask what my job was? QuizWorks has an online brand – the very popular Quizzing.in website. They have recently come up with a section called the Brand History section – which aims to be the world’s largest database for Brands and Brands Trivia, no less. My job was to co-ideate this section and work on the Rare Brands part of it.
Over a period of time, we had a lot of brainstorming sessions – Me, Rohit (the founder of the company) and others as to how to go about the process. For as everyone knows, whenever everyone looks for any sort of repository of information, one turns to Wikipedia. Our challenge was to create something different.
I am glad to say that, two months down the line, we have strived to achieve a lot of what we had set out to achieve. According to Alexa, the site ranking has increased over 200,000. There is an increased awareness about Brand History and people are actually fascinated to find out a lot of trivia about major companies which they didn’t know. That I feel is the best part of the whole process – you actually see the results of your hard work in front of your own eyes in a very short period of time.
The thing about Quizworks which stands out is its mentorship and guidance. It is not as if you have to follow a hard and fast routine. Neither can you afford to cool your heels. You have to contribute your ideas on a day-to-day basis. If you overdo it, your mentor will ask you to play a round of Hangman with him on Skype. If you cut slack, he will gently remind you that your (very attractive) stipend is due.And there is no hierarchy at work. You address everyone by their first names and comment on an issue which you think is not working out. And your suggestions will be considered and worked upon.
I plan to open my own knowledge services company in the future and ,considering that, this was a godsend for me. I am still very much a part of Brand History and am a regular contributor to the Sports and Fortune 500 sections. And I’m sure that would apply for anyone who interns here – it’s bound to get you hooked to it.
Engineers will appreciate the amount of intuitive analysis that goes behind the designing of brands. Managers will appreciate the amount of effort that goes behind the conception of ideas and plans for the growth of the section. And if you are a quizzer, you’ll appreciate the job just for the sheer bliss of information overload. As Don Corleone would have liked to say, Quizworks is an intern offer you can’t refuse.
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