Learn
Schools
Internships & Projects
Practice
Research
HCD Apprenticeship Programme · with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad
Learn by doing real work.
Projects and internships for school students, college students and anyone who wants to explore a career, including people returning to work after a break. Offered by industry partners, alumni and organisations through the HCD platform, and built with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad.
Three ways in
Choose your door.
Schools
Host internships and start a lab.
Run an intake for your students, start an HCD Lab or a Future Career Lab, and bring industry-run labs and career clinics into school.
For schools
Students and anyone exploring
Apply for a project or internship.
School students, college students, people returning to work after a break, and anyone who wants to explore a career.
Apply
Industry and partners
Offer internships through HCD.
Companies, DIC network and HCD alumni, and organisations offer internships, projects and mentors through their outreach.
For partnersProjects and internships
From a real problem to real work.
Every apprenticeship pairs a project with an internship. Students start with design thinking, the same method HCD Labs teach in schools with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad faculty, and then take it into a workplace.
01
Project
Start with a real problem. Understand the people who live with it, generate ideas and test a solution.
02
Internship
Work with a partner organisation, online, offline or hybrid, on a brief that matters to them.
03
Mentoring
HCD mentors and partner supervisors guide the work, with review points along the way.
04
Show your work
Finish with a portfolio of the project and the internship, presented at the end of the cycle, and a certificate where the programme offers one.
Two intakes a year
Summer and winter.
Intakes for school students run in the summer vacation and the winter break, so learning never competes with exams. College students and career returners can join either intake.
| Intake | When | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Summer intake | During the summer vacation | School students, college students, career returners, anyone exploring |
| Winter intake | During the winter break | School students, college students, career returners, anyone exploring |
Back to work
Stopped working? Start again here.
Returning to work
A way back after a career break.
If you stopped working, for family, health, study or any other reason, an apprenticeship is a low-risk way to rebuild confidence, learn current tools and meet employers. Online and hybrid formats make it easier to fit around the rest of your life.
Kinds of opportunity
Paid internships first.
We always try to find a paid internship first. When one isn't available, we set up a co-project with an industry partner instead.
First
A paid internship
We look for a paid internship first: a partner offers a stipend, and the listing says what it pays before you accept.
If not
A co-project with industry
Where no paid place is available, you work on a co-project with an industry partner. It carries a small fee to cover overheads.
Sometimes
Free and sponsored places
Some places are free, or sponsored through a partner's CSR or outreach programme.
Often
Certification
Many apprenticeships lead to a certificate on completing the work and the final review.
Where there is a fee, it depends on the opportunity: the internship or project itself, any travel, and the mentors available for it. It is shown before you apply, and no one is charged to be considered.
NEP 2020 and the Finnish model
School that opens onto work.
National Education Policy 2020
NEP 2020 asks schools to give every student exposure to vocational work from the middle stage, including a 10-day bagless period in Grades 6–8 spent learning with local vocational experts, with similar internship opportunities through Grades 6–12, including holiday periods. It also asks colleges and universities to offer internships with industry. The apprenticeship programme gives schools and colleges a structured way to do this.
What we learn from Finland
In Finland, lower-secondary pupils spend short periods in workplaces to get to know working life, and the national core curriculum asks schools to run multidisciplinary, phenomenon-based learning modules. We bring the same two ideas together: learning anchored in real-world phenomena, and early, supervised contact with the world of work.
DIC Hub and the DIC network
Built with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad.
HCD Institute is incubated at Design Innovation Centre (DIC) Hub, IIT Hyderabad, and its programmes are delivered in fellowship with it. The apprenticeship platform builds on the design thinking curriculum HCD Labs already deliver in schools with DIC Hub faculty.
The DIC network, from DIC nodes in colleges to the people who have studied and worked with DIC, is where many of our partners and mentors come from. Alumni of the DIC network and of HCD Institute can offer internships and projects through the platform.
In fellowship with
The HCD Apprenticeship Programme is run by The Institute of Human-Centred Design with Design Innovation Centre (DIC) Hub, IIT Hyderabad, and the DIC network of colleges and alumni.
Labs and chairs in schools
Bring the workplace into school.
Schools
HCD Labs
Design thinking labs inside schools, run by a school's own teachers and supported by DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad. A natural base for apprenticeship projects.
HCD Lab at School
Schools
Future Career Labs
A space in school where internships are hosted: partners bring briefs, mentors and tools, and students work on them in a safe, supervised setting.
Industry and alumni
Industry-run labs and chairs
HCD works with its alumni and partners to set up labs or chairs run by industry in schools: for example, a technology company running a career clinic for students.
Illustrative example · How an industry chair works
A materials company sponsors a chair in a school's Future Career Lab.
Design schools in India already work this way: an industry-sponsored chair lets students take on projects connected to that industry. We bring the same model into schools. Here's how a year could look for a company that makes building and packaging materials.
Set up
The chair
The company sponsors the chair: tools and materials for the lab, and a named mentor from its team.
Brief
A real problem
It sets a brief from its own industry, such as cutting packaging waste in the school canteen.
Project
Students design
Students research, ideate and prototype with design thinking, with HCD mentors and visits from the company.
Internship
Into the workplace
Students who want to go further take an online or hybrid internship with the company in the next intake.
Show
Jury and next year
The company sits on the end-of-cycle jury, and the chair sets a new brief for the following year.
Child-safe by design
Safeguarding comes first.
Many apprentices are under 18. Every placement offered through HCD follows these rules.
- Learning, not employmentPlacements are structured learning experiences with a project and a mentor, in line with Indian law on children and adolescents.
- Consent firstStudents under 18 take part only with the consent of a parent or guardian and, where it applies, their school.
- Vetted partnersEvery partner organisation agrees to HCD Institute's child-safeguarding code before it can offer a place.
- Supervised settingsOffline placements for school students run in groups, at school, at DIC Hub or at partner sites with a named supervisor. Online sessions run on monitored, group channels.
- Age-appropriate workTasks, hours and formats are set for the student's age and stage, and reviewed by HCD mentors.
- A way to raise concernsStudents, parents and schools can reach HCD Institute directly at dic@hcd.institute at any time.
Questions
Good to know.
Who can apply?
Are internships paid?
Is there a fee?
Can I do an apprenticeship online?
How does a school take part?
How does an organisation offer internships?
HCD Apprenticeship Programme