Marius - MSc Biotechnology - Intern Chaincraft - August 2021

Hello everyone, my name is Marius Konijn, a recent graduate from the MSc. Biotechnology – Process Technology programme. Last month I finished my internship at Chaincraft, a spin-off of the WUR, as a business developer.

For my internship I was looking for something that combined my Biotechnology expertise and my interest in innovation and business. This made the search tricky at times, as either it was not related to biotechnology,  or it was pure biotech. Therefore, I had talks with several companies I found throughout my network and previous experiences, without much success. The companies did not have a project with both suited my interest and the requirements of the WUR. After having short online coffee chats with several companies a week and still not finding an internship, it was hard to keep my motivation. However, never give up during your search! Eventually you will find something that will fit both you and the company.

Chaincraft is a spin-off of the WUR which is still in the start-up/scale-up phase. Therefore, it was very interesting to be part of this company, as a lot was going on at all times and even as intern you get real responsibilities. You are really part of developing their innovation and the success of the start-up. This made it easy to stay motivated throughout the whole internship as you could see the results of your work directly.

For finding an internship I greatly benefited from my network that I developed throughout my academic career. I did a part-time board year at AIESEC and a full-time board year at Starthub which both helped my with my professional skills and growing my network. The new people I met at conferences and at the Career Day of the WUR were also valuable additions to my network. I reached out to them either directly and via a post on LinkedIn. Via my connections at Starthub I got in touch with Chaincraft, which resulted in a great match!

Therefore, my advice for students would be to grow your network, either via conferences, career days or board years. It can be of great value during your internship and job search, and meeting new people is always nice! 😊