Roos van Buren

WUR student that does an internship at the start-up Ephora Solutions

Hi! My name is Roos and I am from a small village close to Gouda, but I have been living in Wageningen for the last 6.5 years. Currently, I am finishing my master's in Biobased Sciences with a specialization in Biobased and Circular Economy.

The last part of my master's is my internship at Ephora Solutions. I found Ephora Solutions via a lecture that I organized during my studies. I asked them about internship possibilities and that’s how I ended up doing my internship at Ephora Solutions. My internship project mainly focuses on quantifying the environmental impacts of re-use plastic bags used in the coffee industry.

I chose to do an internship at a start-up to find out if becoming an entrepreneur is something I want myself.

I certainly learned a lot about entrepreneurship, developing new projects, and how to fund new projects. This offered me great insight into what running a business involves.

So, if you’re looking for an internship that offers flexibility, an independent way of working, and focuses on business aspects as well, I would definitely recommend doing your internship at a start-up!

My name is Merijn Faro I am currently studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Utrecht. I am 22 and I was born in Aruba. After two years at the University of Utrecht I am now getting the chance to get more experience in the field by performing as an intern at Livestock Robotics on a project for FarmVent.

I chose an internship at a start-up because I found an interesting project and saw a place where I can grow as a person. Also, Livestock Robotics has the resources and support that is required to successfully complete my internship.

I think that everyone needs a purpose, I would love to believe that I would one day be making an impact on climate change with technology & innovation, and this would not be possible without the help of other people.

I only started a few weeks ago, but until now I can say that there is better interaction with colleagues. This is usually the case with small organizations.

I hope to learn new things that will help me in the future as an Electrical Engineer and as a person in general.

Merijn Faro

Student of HU University of Applied Sciences that does an internship at the start-ups’ Livestock Robotics & Farmvent

Lyubomir Spasov

WUR student that does an internship at the start-up ReShore

Hi, my name is Lyubomir, from Bulgaria. I am currently finishing my Master’s in Environmental Sciences, where I followed the Environmental Economics and Entrepreneurship tracks. I heard about the internship with ReShore from a friend who also did an internship at StartHub. It turned out to be a unique opportunity to combine the two fields I am most interested in, while helping bring a nature-based marine infrastructure innovation to the next level!

My tasks included performing an economic valuation of the ecosystem services provided by regenerative aquaculture (that is the cultivation of bivalves and seaweed) and developing a Cost-Benefit Analysis model of the LIVING Breakwater. I also did some entrepreneurial tasks, such as contacting potential customers (think harbour masters of ports and marinas) and conducting user-need interviews as part of a StartLife acceleration programme.

Being at StartHub was a rich experience in itself! There I met other like-minded students and entrepreneurs, attended thought-provoking events, and even got to work on my own idea during the Ideation programme. I would definitely recommend interning at a start-up if you like finding solutions to real-world problems and want to do something hands-on about it!

My name is Sri Bening. I come from Indonesia, an archipelago of a country with over 17000 islands. We are a source of biodiversity, that’s why I chose to do my master in Biology at Wageningen University, with the specialisation Health and Disease.

Currently, I am doing my internship at InsectSense.

I was scrolling around LinkedIn to search for a potential internship location and found out that InsectSense was looking for an intern to study the memory of honeybees. As someone who is quite familiar with bees, it was intriguing for me to study how their memory works. After I got accepted, I found out that doing an internship at a start-up is super different from what I had expected. Before, I was more into research instead of the applicative side of innovation.

At InsectSense, I am indeed working with the bee, but I also learn how to run a business, how to pitch to an investor, and all economic stuff that I’ve never learned before. I even had the chance to pitch at Dutch 4TU Impact Challenge where BeeSense became the runner up!

For me, being an intern in a start-up offers an experience to see how a company grows. Certainly, a great way to learn how to transform from a student to a founder!

Sri Bening

WUR student that does an internship at the start-up InsectSense

VEdant sachdeva

WUR graduate that does an internship at the start-up Farmvent

Hola, I am Vedant Sachdeva from India. I did my Masters in Food Technology and now I am working at Farmvent as Food Science Consultant.

Once upon a time, I learnt about this wonderful idea about vertical farming from my dear friend Niko and in a year, it was a Pilot start-up. In the meantime, I roamed around Europe learning about Food Science, Management, Food Law, Food technology and so on. I graduated and had a bit of free time before I started my new job and Niko needed someone to form a food safety base for his company so I joined Farmvent. The last three weeks have been a great learning curve for me. I am handling multiple projects from different fields, I guess that’s the perk of working for a start-up. The only downside is that you don’t earn a lot of money but you do earn a lot of knowledge, respect and experience. Also, StartHub organizes a lot of events and all offices are always open so there are abundant opportunities to learn. Please do join us here at Starthub if you are looking for a great adventure!!!