How Adobe India created an impactful virtual internship program

This year, amidst the severe second wave of the pandemic, Adobe India welcomed more than 300 interns virtually. Despite these challenges, we turned this summer into an opportunity to lead, innovate, and learn. We welcomed our interns into the Adobe family, designed ground-breaking projects for them, and engaged them in meaningful activities. Here’s how.

Harnessing the power of diversity

This year marked a significant shift in our talent strategy. We went back to the drawing board and revamped our internship with our #AdobeForAll values of diversity and inclusion as the cornerstone of our program. We were hyper focused on hiring top talent, not “top schools.” As a result, we made this one of the most diverse cohorts we have seen in the past decade, with balanced gender representation and persons with disabilities. Despite being an internship delivered virtually, the unparalleled energy from our interns selected from more than 90 different colleges across more than 130 cities in India was palpable in every meeting, event, and project presentation.

Accelerating innovation

Our interns experienced Adobe’s future-first innovation philosophy first-hand as they worked on a large canvas of cutting-edge technology. Imbued with a sense of creating the future, they took charge of taking Adobe into the next decade of technological advancement. They not only worked on business-critical projects, but also contributed to some of Adobe’s new-age innovations, working alongside top thinkers and creators. Several intern ideas got patented while they returned to their respective campuses, creating a meaningful impact on Adobe and its products to come.

Building careers

“The Future is Yours. Create it.” was the rallying cry in which we developed the internship program. And we challenged our interns to do just that. Interns got exposed to leadership through small group interactions with their business unit heads, C-level staff, and even our CEO. It was a unique opportunity to gain valuable first-hand career advice directly from these leaders.

The internship culminated in our flagship event: “Adobe Alchemy,” our annual Intern Summit. It was a power-packed day with an incredible line-up of speakers, creator sessions, learning sessions, and a keynote by renowned celebrity innovator and educationalist, Sonam Wangchuk. His conversation on impactful innovation and making the world a better place turned out to be the showstopper of the summit.

Investing in community

The creators of the future also need to take care of the world too, which is why we gave our interns opportunities to give back to their community. Through our “Mapathon” event, our interns mapped buildings and people’s homes, which resulted in a charity grant of $19,000. In addition, we planted more than 700 trees in Bangalore to offset the carbon footprint created by our Intern Summit.

We also engaged our interns in weekly “Intern-tainment” sessions to build a deeper connection within their community. The main agenda was to have fun while also getting to know one another through other volunteer opportunities, performances, and more.

We had a great time meeting our interns and providing them new perspectives and confidence to build their careers. At Adobe, we believe in changing the world through digital experiences. Our virtual internship program is one such experience that we fully hope will create 300+ young professionals who will change the world.