Remote Internship in Socialab and The Argentine Ministry of Justice and Human Rights

By Max Shakespeare, Remote Summer Program 2020

Max Shakespeare

Thank you for making my experience this past summer possible. I am incredibly grateful to have had this virtual internship opportunity during this chaotic time. Both DRCLAS and Socialab went above and beyond to ensure that despite being on Zoom, this eight-week experience was as fulfilling as it could be.

My team at Socialab was generous and accepting, giving me a lot of flexibility to pursue work that really interested me. They even invited me to an Argentine roast when I am eventually able to visit the country. I found the Argentine accent and heavy use of slang quite difficult to keep up with at times, but my supervisor was helpful in clarifying any things I didn’t understand from our team meetings. Some of the more administrative work was a bit tedious at times, but I understand the utility of these skills. I sent a lot of emails, analysed a lot of spreadsheets and did a lot of data analysis for company reports.

Coming into the internship, I was eager to learn about social entrepreneurship. In a continent with so much potential that has suffered so many economic problems, I wanted to know how innovation and entrepreneurship could be used to stimulate development and make a positive impact across Latin America. In my eight week internship, I was exposed to how many Argentine entrepreneurs are thinking creatively about solutions to many of the problems they face and many of the problems they will face as a result of COVID. I was also able to witness the difficulty these ideas have in gaining any traction. Economic volatility across Latin America, but especially in Argentina, means investors are scared to support ventures. And so, many are run into the ground not long after they’ve begun. Through various interviews with founders of start-ups that had managed to thrive in this difficult environment and VC partners operating in the area, I was able to gain some insight into what it takes for a socially oriented business to take off in the region and I’m still working on compiling a report for SOCIALAB which hopes to somewhat demystify this process for other founders. With this new understanding for the difficulties small start-ups face with regards to early stage funding, I have begun to work on my own start-up where I aim to connect high potential Latin American ventures with US VC funding.

The sadness of a remote internship was the lack of cultural immersion. Not being able to see and explore Argentinian culture and immerse myself in the Spanish language was frustrating at first. I found our culture session on Argentinian tourism (where we were taken on a virtual tour of all the beautiful landscape Argentina had to offer) particularly difficult. But, the effort that DRCLAS went to in organizing informative talks on anything from Argentinian Economic History to the meaning behind reggaeton really gave context to the Latin American experience. They supplemented the internship perfectly both in providing context to the work I was doing and the people I was interacting with. It enabled me to go into each week with a greater understanding of what it meant to be from Latin America.

My time speaking to founders of social ventures as part of the internship and the chance to learn more about the economic situation of the country through our culture sessions has inspired me to pursue the field of economic development further. I am taking a LOA for the upcoming year due to COVID and plan on gaining further professional experience in Latin American Economic Development. I have just received confirmation that I will be able to intern for the Argentine Ministry of Justice between October and December and am very excited to explore the criminal justice system.

On returning to Harvard, I hope to intern again with DRCLAS (that’s how much I have enjoyed it), but in a different country to explore Economic Development from another perspective and broaden my understanding of it. Thank you again for enabling an enlightening experience with Socialab in these incredibly uncertain times, but also what I imagine will be an incredibly rewarding and insightful opportunity with The Ministry of Justice. I am beyond grateful.