Katelyn Tsipiras immersing herself in virtual reality, courtesy of Data61's Immersive Environments Lab.

The IC Global team have been given the wonderful opportunity to host ‘super-intern’ Katelyn Tsipiras for the past three months.

Opportunities to engage with students like Katelyn are rare privileges to gain valuable insights from emerging expertise and new, diverse ways of approaching challenges. 

To help farewell Katelyn this week, IC Global invited her to contribute her thoughts on her internship experience:

This year I have had the privilege of working as an industrial intern at IC Global. I encountered this opportunity as a student at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU, and have found the opportunity to put science communication theory into practice extremely valuable. As I finish my degree, I’ve taken a moment here to reflect on three key things I’ve learnt at IC Global.

Time is of the essence  

It is no secret that experts are often busy people, and we may have mere seconds to engage with them. This must be considered when we are crafting the content they will be interacting with. Clarity and brevity are key. On IC Global’s platforms and social media, this looks like utilising graphics and videos, making key information prominent, and ensuring there are avenues to give feedback.

Done is better than perfect

This is key to the philosophy at IC Global, which was founded by a plunge into the deep end when they set themselves the small goal of profiling every expert in Australia. I embraced this philosophy at my time with IC Global, opting to get things done rather than fixate on perfecting details. This was a liberating experience that allowed me to attempt and revise approaches based on early feedback.

Bring others with you on the journey

As IC Global establishes itself in the innovation ecosystem, it has the opportunity to be part of a bigger community and a wider social context. Features like FindHer, launched on International Women’s Day earlier this year, demonstrate the potential of technology to act for social change. An accompanying communications strategy should reflect this. It has been extremely gratifying to see the support and relationship-building through pertinent communication in this space flourish in the short time I have been at IC Global."
 
Katelyn is an undergraduate student at ANU, majoring in Science Communications (completion December 2019). When she isn’t at CSIRO, Katelyn does public outreach at Mt Stromlo Observatory and volunteers to deliver science education to young people.