The ETC’s Creative Good Fund Makes Purpose-Driven Internships Possible

Summer is often a time for students to do internships — internships that will provide them with important workplace experience and industry connections. But sometimes, these internships can also help make the world a better place. At Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), the Creative Good Fund was created to support the students who choose to spend their summer doing just that.

The Creative Good Fund is awarded to students who intern at nonprofits that would be otherwise unable to incorporate creative technology like museums, zoos, and educational programs. Launched in 2013, the fund was first established by a generous donation from Afzaal Akhtar (ENG 1984, 1986) and Sarah Bhutta (MCS 1988) in memory of Afzaal’s mother, Shaheen Akhtar. It’s been funded by generous donors ever since.

“The Creative Good Fund started because we saw a need: nonprofits can use our help, but they can’t always pay for a summer intern,” said ETC Teaching Professor Brenda Bakker Harger, who helped start the Creative Good Fund. “It also opens up an opportunity for students, since it lets them see that there’s a bigger world than industry: there are possibilities to do work in places where there’s real need.”

The Creative Good Fund has supported internships at many organizations, including Games for Change, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Give Kids the World.

“Our partnership with Give Kids the World was at the beginning of it,” said Harger. “The ETC often partners with Give Kids the World for a project-based semester, but they didn’t have the funding for staff members to maintain the entertainment technology over the summer. So I had the idea: what if we funded ETC students to use their skills to work with nonprofits for summer internships?”

Located in Central Florida, Give Kids The World provides families with a free vacation that includes lodging, breakfast and dinner, and entertainment options — including visiting popular theme parks like Disneyworld and Universal Studios.

“Our tagline is ‘where happiness inspires hope,’” said Ian Cole, the Chief Innovation Officer at Give Kids the World. “These are families that have been through a lot. Some are still battling illness, and some have beaten cancer and are now making new happy memories. Either way, we bring magic to them that helps brighten their day.”

This year, second-year ETC student Courtney Singleton received an award from the Creative Good Fund to work at Give Kids the World. One of her main projects was improving the WonderLab, an interactive entertainment venue where children can do activities with their parents.

“I worked with 3 other interns to make updates to the WonderLab, such as adding new lighting, updating the hardware and gameplay for one of the interactive stations – The Brilliance Bottler – and making updates to the animatronic that greets guests when they enter the space,” said Singleton.

She added that one of the highlights of the summer was celebrating the WonderLab's one year anniversary. “This was a huge milestone, as we got to show off the projects we'd been working on and made little gifts for the volunteers who attended as a thank you for their efforts. I demonstrated the hardware updates we had made to the Bottler and demonstrated the new idle mode, which was designed to allow kids who may be too young to understand the actual games a way to play around with the platform and make their own fun.”

“I love the energy and passion that students bring to this kind of project,” said Cole. “There’s a big belief in what’s possible. When interns come for the summer, they do amazing things, and what they work on continues to amaze and delight for years to come.”

Creative Good Fund recipients create lasting change at the organizations they serve, but this opportunity also changes them.

“Give Kids the World has become an important part of my life,” said 2019 ETC graduate Dustin Stephan, who received an award from the Creative Good Fund in 2019. “It’s such a heartwarming and heart melting place.”

Stephan said that working at Give Kids the World was one of his first opportunities to work on accessible digital experience – but certainly not his last. “I’ve continued to find opportunities to engage with guests with all walks of life. In a lot of my current work, I work on projects that have social impact and on finding ways to engage with non-traditional communities and provide media and entertainment that is accessible to all.”

While recipients of the Creative Good Fund often work with Give Kids the World, they can also work with other non-profits as well.

For example, 2018 ETC graduate Vaishnavi Yathirajam received an award from the Creative Good Fund that allowed her to spend her summer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). There, she worked on a science data visualization project. 

“I made a hologram that picked up on keywords and generated data from a satellite map to project hurricanes on a 3D map of the world,” she said. “It made data more visible, and 3D holograms are the future of science data. My hologram is still displayed in the 3D visualization room today.”

She said that the Creative Good Fund award allowed her to complete an important project, and also helped her develop her skills and set herself up for a career. “This project allowed me to showcase my skillset to a wider group of people. It let me build something, and it even helped me get a job later at JPL.”

Harger also emphasized that the Creative Good Fund creates a special opportunity for both students and the organizations they partner with.

“I’ve seen this since we started the program: it’s always mutually beneficial.” she said. “Students always come away as lifelong fans, and after the summer is over they’ll go back and volunteer. Students get to use and develop their skillsets, and we fund them to give back and do good – that’s why it’s called the Creative Good Fund!”

Support the Creative Good Fund with a donation at this link.

Main image caption: A view of the bottler in the WonderLab at Give Kids the World