Axial Partners with Duke University to Save Summer Internships

One of the many, less-written-about cohorts of professionals impacted by the coronavirus is student interns. In a climate of furloughs, layoffs, and hiring freezes, students across the country have faced the harsh reality of losing out on hard-won summer internship opportunities. Internships which often serve as developmental stepping stones towards post-grad career choices are much harder to come by due to the forcing function of COVID-19.

A few weeks ago, an inspiring initiative spearheaded by Duke University – The Phoenix Project – came to our attention at Axial.  The program has brought together over 150 students, from data science and computer engineering curricula, to pair them with companies and place them on new projects for a meaningful and engaging summer experience.

We are excited to partner with Duke and welcome 4 student interns onto our product and engineering team for the summer. The team from Duke (self-dubbed Team Flamingo) will be helping us build a Machine Learning based recommendation system, to create more intentional and accurate connections between members on the Axial platform. The product will help business owners and intermediaries streamline the deal setup process on Axial, by automating and ensuring that the most pertinent information about the deal is being surfaced to prospective counterparties. Team Flamingo hit the ground running, making significant inroads on their project in the first few weeks. We can’t wait to see the final product – fly team fly!

Meet Team Flamingo