Great College Life · Community Development Fellowship
Your batchmates are
chasing a dream job at 22.
You're on the path to CEO by 40.
DT Fellows work 5-9pm, Mon-Sat, alongside their degree. Your first work experience shapes your career. Most internships give you tasks. Here, you solve problems, understand business context, and make your own decisions.
“Everyone at some point in life should work at DT.”
Feliza Dadachenji, Maths Asst Professor | DT Fellow, 2020
We don't look for the best candidate. We look for the most curious.
Community Development Fellowship · 1 rounds · 48 hours · No interviews until you've seen how we work.
Promotion to AI PM role
After 4 months of satisfactory performance, you move to AI Product Management. Every conversation you had with MDs becomes product insight. You go from talking to decision-makers to building the AI that learns from those conversations.
The real fork in your career
Employee mindset,
or management mindset?
An MD or CEO with 1,000 employees is carrying 1,000 families. Kids in school. Kids in college — kids like you were, not long ago. Every call they make about the business eventually reaches a dinner table somewhere. You are about to choose which side of that table you sit on: the one waiting for the decision, or the one making it.
Employee mindset
- You do the work that lands on your desk.
- You are measured on your own output.
- Your decisions mostly affect you.
Management mindset
- You decide which work gets done at all.
- You are measured on what 1,000 people produce.
- Your decisions land on 1,000 dinner tables.
But management is not a title
It is a worldview you have to build. A different way of seeing the business — and it asks real things of you.
Read a P&L — and know what moves it
Where the money is made, where it quietly leaks, and the one lever that actually changes the number.
Understand how organisations really work
A thousand-person company runs on incentives and systems, not on the lines of an org chart.
Design systems that scale
You can never speak to all 1,000 people. Your system has to carry the right approach to every one of them.
Where you come in
The third layer of leadership.
These are small companies. Traditional teams. People who have run the same way for decades. And they are betting on DT Fellows as a third layer of leadership — working beside their CXOs to bring AI transformation into a place that has never seen it. You will not be an employee waiting for instructions. You will be the one designing the system the other thousand run on. That is the mindset we are selecting for.
Why DT
Two kinds of youngsters.
India produces one. DT hires the other.
Type A · Employee Mindset
Impress. Fit into existing systems. Follow instructions. India's placement system is built to produce and hire Type A.
Type B · Intrapreneur Mindset
Creative. Innovative. Make decisions. Own outcomes. Passion-driven problem solvers.
What is DeepThought, really?
The founders who build ₹50Cr, ₹100Cr, ₹500Cr companies already think scientifically about their product. But that thinking stays stuck in one person. Product rigor next to execution sloppiness.
DeepThought closes that gap. We install Scientific Thinking into how companies operate daily. Not advice. Not workshops. A system where daily work IS hypothesis-test-learn.
15 years. Started in 2011 with Sciensation. Built PDGMS. The vehicle changed four times. The mission never did.
What Fellows Do
Decision-making power in their 20s.
Most people reach decision-making roles by their 40s. DT Fellows work alongside CEOs and Directors of ₹100-500Cr companies, driving organisational transformation and AI, while still in college.
Sravan Kumar
Chief of Staff
Pharma company, ₹200Cr+
Works directly with the MD (NASA scientist founder). Brought in AI that cut purchase-to-dispatch from 3 days to 1. Runs decisions that change how the factory floor operates.
Joined as: BBA student
Shagun Mishra
AI Programs Lead
India’s largest probiotic manufacturer
Led a 20-member team. Shipped 58 software modules as a fresher in 2023.before AI tools existed. Now leads AI Programs at a company present in 60+ countries.
Joined as: BTech student
Jayaraj
Engagement Lead
Multiple DT client companies
Works with company Directors on growth strategy and execution. Drives organisational transformation across manufacturing and services companies.
Joined as: BTech student
The Architects
Tarun Ayitam
15 years of designing the scientific method. Alumnus of IISER Pune (Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science) and TEDx speaker. Tarun encoded 32+ company implementations into PDGMS AI Platform to lower CAC and drive employee ownership.
HERITAGE
Who's been in this room
This programme has been running in different forms since 2011. Fifty participants from six countries have been through it. These are the people whose work and questions shaped what the programme is today.
Raghu Seelamsetty
Founder, Escape Velocity
2017
Nastaran Bisheban
CTO, KFC Canada
2021
Dave Snowden
Founder & CSO, Cognitive Edge
2021
Dr. Michael Lissack
President, American Society for Cybernetics
2021
Abhinav Gupta
AVP Innovation, Broadridge
2023
Humberto Schwab
Founder, Socratic Design Academy
2020
Dr. Matti Itkonen
Cultural Philosopher, University of Jyväskylä
2021
Kashyap Kompella
Hyderabad Chair, StartupGrind
2017
Jayesh Ranjan
IAS Officer, Govt of Telangana
2017
Dr. David Willows
Director of Advancement, University of Brussels
2021Designations are as on the date when the participant attended the dialogue.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
The work in action.
Roundtable
Hack Your MVP
Live session with practitioners and founders.
Socratic Dialogue
Darwin Day
Jury-style debate on scientific and business questions.
The Grid
25 cells. Every company.
Every company runs on 25 cells. Five vertical layers from Direction (V5) down to Employee (V1). Five horizontal functions from Offers (H1) through to Orders (H5). When something goes wrong in a business, it lives in one of these cells. The grid tells you where to look.
| H1 Offers | H2 Capability | H3 Capacity | H4 Experience | H5 Orders | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V5 Direction | V5×H1 The board decides what to offer the market. Which segments to enter, which bets to place, which products to build or kill. | V5×H2 The board sets the capability agenda. What skills, R&D investments, and knowledge does the company need? | V5×H3 The board decides the scale at which the company operates. Production philosophy, plant investments, make-or-buy. | V5×H4 The board defines what the customer experience should feel like. The promise the company makes. | V5×H5 The board sets revenue targets. How much, from whom, by when. The number the entire grid works backward from. |
| V4 Strategy | V4×H1 Strategy translates direction into market moves. Pricing, positioning, competitive response. | V4×H2 Strategy designs the capability roadmap. Which technologies, processes, and people to develop. | V4×H3 Strategy plans infrastructure and production. Build vs buy, capacity planning, supply chain design. | V4×H4 Strategy designs the service and fulfillment model. Channels, support tiers, satisfaction benchmarks. | V4×H5 Strategy designs the sales architecture. Account targeting, pipeline design, deal structures. |
| V3 Plan | V3×H1 The program manager plans the go-to-market. Launch timelines, campaign specs, channel priorities. | V3×H2 The program manager runs R&D and training programs. Investigate, hypothesise, experiment, standardise. | V3×H3 The program manager plans production schedules and delivery timelines. Work breakdown, resource allocation, bottleneck removal. | V3×H4 The program manager plans the fulfillment process. Delivery workflows, quality checkpoints, escalation paths. | V3×H5 The program manager plans the sales pipeline. Territory assignments, deal stages, forecast cadence. |
| V2 Supervisor | V2×H1 The supervisor manages the team doing market research, customer interviews, competitive analysis. | V2×H2 The supervisor manages engineers, trainers, R&D teams. Root cause analysis, process experiments, quality checks. | V2×H3 The supervisor manages the floor. Production, logistics, throughput, daily delivery targets. | V2×H4 The supervisor manages customer-facing teams. Support, service, complaint resolution. | V2×H5 The supervisor manages sales reps. Daily call targets, proposal reviews, deal coaching. |
| V1 Employee | V1×H1 The employee does the research, talks to customers, drafts the offer documents. | V1×H2 The employee builds, prototyping, testing, learning, documenting. | V1×H3 The employee does the work. Manufacturing, shipping, coding, delivering. | V1×H4 The employee serves the customer. Handles complaints, ensures satisfaction, closes the loop. | V1×H5 The salesman sells. Calls, proposals, negotiations, closes. Cash enters the system. |
Case Files
A 3-day purchase to dispatch cycle. Every department did their job, but the handoffs were unowned.
The company mapped the actual flow and redesigned the protocol between departments, setup Microsoft CoPilot AI automations.
“3 days became 1 day, recovering 200+ days of capacity per year”
The Proof
DeepThought helped us in deploying and managing high performance elastic teams. DT runs continuous improvement, which means Project2 is better than Project1 and Project3 is better than Project2
Pharma & Biotech Transformation
Selection Process
4 rounds. Each one teaches you something.
DT doesn't look for experience or qualifications. We look for a mindset. We look for a candidate with a “fire in the belly.”
Role-Specific Assignment
For You
You understand the role through a simulation
For Us
We understand your skillset
48 hours
Video Reflection & Mindmap
For You
You understand DeepThought and PDGMS AI Platform
For Us
We understand if you connect with our vision
48 hours (with R3)
Career Roadmap Reflection
For You
You understand how this aligns with your career
For Us
We understand your mindset
48 hours (with R2)
Virtual Tour
For You
You experience the work culture first-hand
For Us
We understand if you can endure the rigor
6 days (after shortlisting)
This process is rigorous and most applicants are rejected. Proceed only if challenges fuel you.
Your Journey
1 round. 48 hours. Step by step.
The clock starts when you send the consent message on Internshala.
At 19, you will be calling MDs who built ₹100-500 Cr companies. That is not normal. Most people do not get to have these conversations until their 30s. Your job is to understand these people well enough to invite them to a room where they belong. Every conversation you have teaches DT's AI platform something new about how Indian companies actually work. You are not just making calls. You are training the system.
What happens after you join
Promotion to AI PM role
After 4 months of satisfactory performance, you move to AI Product Management. Every conversation you had with MDs becomes product insight. You go from talking to decision-makers to building the AI that learns from those conversations.
All parts due within 48 hours. Submit on Internshala chat.
Before you begin
Three shortcuts. None of them worked.
Three candidates went through this same process. Got shortlisted. Did the virtual tour. Sat across from a real CEO. Each one took a shortcut.
All three had potential.
None made it through.
“What I've seen is all of you are talking about things without understanding what they mean. And that is dangerous.”
The depth you build here is what carries you through that conversation.
That part is up to you.
Every Saturday, 8 MDs from 8 different industries sit in one room and work through one business question together. When a pharma MD and a precision engineering MD look at the same problem, they see completely different things. That is where the insight comes from. Every conversation you have in this role teaches DT's AI platform something new about how Indian companies actually work. You are not just inviting people to a room. You are training the system.
Part A
50%The Invitation
You are calling Dr. Venkat Rao, the MD of Sai Pharma Labs, a ₹200 Cr pharma company in Hyderabad. He built this company over 20 years. He just picked up. You want him to be curious enough about the Sciensation Roundtable to say 'send me the details.'
Record a 60-90 second voice note of this call. You are inviting an MD to a conversation between his peers. The Roundtable is free and by invitation only. Below, we have given you his company details, a language guide, and a sample call. Go through all four steps before you record. You are 19 and calling someone who built a ₹200 Cr company. That is exactly the point. If you can make this person curious, you can do this job.
Understand the situation before you say anything
Venkat is a scientist who built a ₹200 Cr company. His R&D lab runs experiments, tests hypotheses, files patents. That part of the business is strong. But when it comes to business decisions, he thinks alone. There is no room where he can work through a business problem with the same rigour he uses in the lab.
His leads-to-orders conversion has been dropping for 3 quarters. He hired a sales head. Brought in a training company. Nothing changed. He does not need another solution. He needs to sit with MDs from other industries who have seen this pattern from a different angle.
He goes to CII (industry association) pharma events. But those rooms are all pharma people. They all think the same way. He has never been in a room where a biotech MD and an engineering company MD look at the same conversion problem and see completely different things.
Where to submit: Submit your Part A response in the Internshala chat.
When someone hesitates, they are telling you something about themselves. What they are worried about. What they have experienced before. What box they have put you in. The best community builders listen for that, not just the words. Understanding why someone hesitates is the same skill as understanding why someone belongs in a room.
Part B
30%The Hesitation
Venkat did not say no. But he is not saying yes either. He gives you 4 different reasons to hesitate. Handle each one.
Record 4 separate voice notes, one per objection. Before you respond, click into each one and read what is going on underneath the words. Your job is to help him see this differently. Not by arguing. By understanding what he is actually thinking.
The MD says
“I already attend CII and FICCI events. I do not need another forum.”
Guidelines
- Before you respond, ask yourself: what is he actually worried about? Time? Trust? Value? The words are just how the worry comes out.
- Agree with something first. If you jump straight to your answer, he feels like you are not listening. And listening is the whole job.
- You do not need to convince him. You need him to say 'okay, tell me more' or 'fine, send me the details.' That is enough.
- Keep it light. You are inviting someone to a conversation worth having.
Listening for
- Did you hear what he said, or did you just wait for your turn to talk?
- Does your answer speak to what he is actually worried about?
- Did you move the conversation forward or did it stop?
- Does your tone stay warm even when he pushes?
Where to submit: Submit your Part B response in the Internshala chat.
This is the real test of the community instinct. Different MD. Different industry. Different topic. No sample call this time. No language guide. Just you and the dossier. Read it. Notice what she cares about. Figure out why she belongs in this room.
Part C
20%Your Prep Note
You are calling Priya Sundaram, MD of Aravind Tooling Systems, in 10 minutes. The upcoming Roundtable topic is TAT (turnaround time). Write your call plan.
Write a 5-7 line prep note. The notes you would scribble before dialing. We want to see if you can read an MD's profile, connect it to the Roundtable topic, and figure out the right way to invite them.
Study the company, the language, and the call structure
Where to submit: Submit your Part C response in the Internshala chat.
Commitment
What we ask. What we invest.
Proceed only if you can prioritise the Fellowship and dedicate the required time.
Schedule
5 PM – 9 PM
Monday through Saturday
Duration
6 months
Structured fellowship
Stipend
₹8,000/month
₹4,000 basic + ₹4,000 L&D
L&D Investment
₹5,000/month
DT invests in your growth
Internet
High-speed required
Stable for video calls
Mode
Remote (Zoom)
Video-on collaboration
Rules of Engagement
AI policy. Per round.
Round 1.Assignment
Use AI tools freely. Set guardrails against hallucination.
Round 1.Hand-drawn Sketch
Shows YOUR thought process. Hand-drawn only.
Round 2.Mindmap
Hand-drawn on paper. AI usage = elimination.
Round 3.ChatGPT Bot
The ChatGPT bot IS the tool. Use it as designed.
Round 3.Internshala Message
Your own words. No Grammarly, no LLMs.
All Communication with DT
We want YOUR thinking, not a language model's.
Consent to Proceed
Before starting, you'll reply on Internshala with:
“I understand that:
- The selection process is long, rigorous, and most applicants are not selected.
- I may be rejected even after significant effort.
- I will remain professional in all communication.
- I will not use LLM/AI tools in the chat thread.
- I will complete Round 1 within 48 hours and R1+R2+R3 within 96 hours.”
FAQs
Common questions. Clear answers.
Open Roles
Pick your path into the great college life.
Each role has a unique Round 1 assignment. The fellowship experience (rounds, mentorship, the work) is the same.
Great College Life
Other internships give you a certificate.
This one gives you a seat at the table.
Sravan went from BBA to Chief of Staff. Shagun shipped 58 modules as a fresher. They weren't trained for it. They did the work, alongside founders, on real problems, with real stakes.
“Everyone at some point in life should work at DT.”
Feliza Dadachenji, Maths Asst Professor | DT Fellow, 2020
We don't look for the best candidate.
We look for the most curious one.
Challenges should fuel you, not frustrate you.