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HCD Apprenticeship Programme · For industry and partners
Offer internships through HCD.
Companies, alumni of the DIC network and HCD Institute, and organisations can offer internships, projects and mentors to students through the HCD platform, as part of their own outreach or CSR.
Ways to take part
Choose what fits your team.
Internships
Online, offline or hybrid.
Host school or college students, or career returners, for an intake.
Projects
Share a real brief.
Give students a problem your organisation cares about and see what they make of it.
Mentors and juries
Lend your people.
Your team guides students and sits on end-of-cycle reviews.
Labs and chairs
Run a lab in a school.
Set up a lab, chair or career clinic in a school, with HCD and its alumni.
Outreach and CSR
Reach more students.
Run the programme as part of your outreach, with HCD handling curriculum and coordination.
Alumni
DIC network and HCD alumni.
Bring the next students into your field, the way someone once did for you.
Who does what
You bring the work. We handle the rest.
| HCD Institute | Partner |
|---|---|
| Shapes the brief with you and matches students | Offers the internship, project or mentors |
| Prepares students with design thinking first | Names a supervisor for each placement |
| Runs safeguarding, consent and reviews | Follows HCD's child-safeguarding code |
| Coordinates schools and intakes | Joins the end-of-cycle presentations |
How you offer it
Paid internships first, co-projects next.
We ask partners for paid internships first. If you can't offer paid places, run a co-project with students instead: a small fee from participants covers the overheads. You can also fund free places through your CSR or outreach.
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.
Sponsor a chair
Connect students to your industry.
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.
- 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.
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.
For partners
Tell us what you'd like to offer.
We'll reply within two working days to shape the opportunity with you.