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Inside Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, a digital entrepreneurship incubator in South Africa where Metzger interned this summer as a social impact consultant. Courtesy photo.

Interning in South Africa As An Undergrad

While most of her classmates from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business took off to places like New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, or Chicago for their summer internships, Sophia Metzger decided to leave the continent in pursuit of a lesser-taken internship option. Metzger, who is now a junior at Indiana’s Kelley School landed in Johannesburg, South Africa where she spent eight weeks working at Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, a digital entrepreneurship incubator for students, working professionals, and unemployed youth.

“I really wanted to put myself in a new space,” Metzger, who is studying finance and law, ethics, and decision-making along with a minor in sociology told us last summer. “Digital innovation and entrepreneurship was something I didn’t have a lot of experience with. I consider myself pretty risk averse so I knew this would be really interesting.”

Metzger spent her time working mainly on a team with another American undergraduate student and a Canadian undergraduate student. But as comes with traveling and spending time abroad, the lessons from the summer went well beyond business. “I think that across America, especially, the South African story is very simplified in our eyes because no one can really understand apartheid and the large inequality this country is faced with,” Metsger said. “I think it gets placed in a framework of crime in Americans’ eyes so a lot of people were concerned. I would say you have to be careful, obviously, but there’s such a large piece of the story that’s missing. To be in South Africa, is an important piece of this internship experience.”

Danny Sheridan (left) and Rishi Prasad (right) co-founded Wolverine Crypto Trading at the University of Michigan. Stewart Thornhill, the executive director of the Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at Michigan’s Ross School of Business is pictured in the center. Courtesy photo

The Cryptocurrency Club At Michigan Ross Is Probably Smarter Than You

The days of blockchain and cryptocurrency and trading are upon us. And it’s largely a youth movement. Two of those future finance leaders are Danny Sheridan and Rishi Prasad, students at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and recently launched the university’s first ever crypto-focused club, the Wolverine Crypto Trading club at the University of Michigan.

“Wolverine Crypto Trading stemmed from an itch to learn about the blockchain and cryptocurrency space,” Sheridan, a senior majoring in management at the Ross School and president of Wolverine Crypto Trading told Poets&Quants. “There is too much for one person to learn alone. Thus, Rishi and I put together a team of multi-discipline students to learn through discussion.”

More than a club of like-minded students meeting and discussing trends, the duo have taken it a step further. They created a hands-on fund for team members. But rather than waiting to seek out investors, Sheridan decided to provide the capital funds himself. Now, each member of the club gets $1,000 to trade in the cryptocurrency markets.

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