Internship listings JRCZ Data Science Lab
As an intern, you will have the opportunity to work on a project that will change and support the way students learn and evaluate skills. You will collaborate closely with a team of experts and educators to design, develop, and optimize games and applications. Your work will directly contribute to the enhancement of multiple programs’ curriculums.
Just interested in the projects? Immediately head to the project list!
Data Science Lab?
The JRCZ Data Science Lab tries to fulfil a regional hub function surrounding data questions: everyone should know we're the place to come to if you have questions about data. The most fun questions are usually where our projects come from. We're good at walking the knife's edge between software engineering and data science, and we have very cool equipment to do that with!
Talking about that equipment, the lab consists of three areas that are purposefully built to support data visualization, collaboration and interaction. Depending on the project needs and stage, we can use the different areas to full effect. Think of our 3D-enabled 6m wide curved LED wall for example!
The way we run projects is comparable to a project consultancy bureau: we try to gather as many cool projects as we can, and then work on them with students, interns and researchers from Scalda and HZ. So depending on what project you're interning on, your client might range from a Nursing teacher to a startup to a governmental policy advisor!
Key responsibilities
- Design and develop a game/app; together with the clients you will decide where to start and where to end
- Collaborate with educators and subject matter experts to ensure the accuracy and educational effectiveness of the game/app
- Incorporate interactive elements and simulations to facilitate learning and skill evaluation
Qualifications
- Some experience in creating non-trivial software programs. For example a personal finance app with two or three design patterns
- 3D modeling and texturing skills are a pre, but not necessary
- Passion for software/game development and a keen interest in educational technology
- Strong problem-solving and communication skills
- Self-motivated and able to work independently and as part of a team
Benefits
- €400 net salary
- Opportunity to work with new(est) technologies – 6m wide LED walls, Unreal Engine, motion tracking cameras, Meta Quest 3, and more
- Short lines of communication with people very happy to help you
- HZ coffee card providing you with near infinite amounts of coffee/tea/cocoa
Process
Below you will find a list of projects. Click on them to make the entire project description appear. If you're excited to be part of the project that has the potential to make a difference in education, please submit your resume, your choice of project and a short motivation letter to datasciencelab@jrcz.nl. If you have a portfolio of relevant work, please include it as well. Deadline for applications is 14 May 2025 at 17:00. Chosen applicants will be invited for an interview on 19 May or 20 May 2025, and we will inform you of our choice on 23 May 2025.
Internships will start on 1 September 2025 and end on 1 February 2026.
Projects
Virtual anatomy | Dutch or English | internship or graduation
Client: teachers and students of HZ Nursing study program
Disclaimer: it is rather hard to explain the complexity and coolness of this project in text. We recommend you stop by the Data Science Lab and just walk in to literally see it.
We have developed a virtual anatomy model for our Nursing program. It contains the entire human body in high quality, almost photorealistic 3D models from a Dutch medical doctor.
Now that we have the entire human body in there, we need to create functionality so that the teachers and students can actually use it in class. Guided tours, descriptions, filtering, transparency, even quizzing are all features you could work on. And maybe you have your own good ideas? They are very welcome!
Better learn.hz.nl | Dutch or English | internship or graduation
Client: HZ teachers, HZ Digital and Learn helpdesk
Every single course at HZ has its own learn.hz.nl page, which is filled by the teachers of that course. This is a time-consuming process; it is boring and it is error-prone work due to the UI being quite old. There is often much more to be had from a learn.hz.nl page than there currently is: i.e formative quizzes for every lecture, progress tracking and extra material to dive deeper into a topic. Most teachers don't have time (or simply don't want) to wrestle through the UI to create these quizzes, setup tracking, etc etc.
This project is about creating a GenAI assistant into learn.hz.nl that teachers can use to quickly setup their pages. i.e. fill in a pre-defined template based on course materials, create quizzes from slides, rewrite assignment instructions so they're clearer, etc. You will get access to a testing environment of learn.hz.nl, where you'll create the GenAI assistant. At the end of the semester, you'll actually test the assistant with a few teachers in an A/B/C test to check the resulting pages in learn.hz.nl: locally hosted LLM, cloud hosted LLM, no assistant.
Depending on the success of this project, our IT department will take the assistant and actually put it in production. You might just help thousands of students with better learn.hz.nl pages..!
AI Powered conversation training | Dutch or English | internship or graduation
Client: JRCZ - and small team of lecturers from different study programs on HZ
We have built a front and backend application that allows you to converse with an AI powered NPC. This application will be used by multiple study programs to help students practice various conversation techniques throughout a variety of scenarios.
The next step in the project is to rebuild the backend into something more adaptable and reusable. The original project was made for a specific use case. But we're having more and more projects that use conversational AI, and it would be nice to use the same backend in those projects as well.
AR Coastal Challenge | Dutch or English | internship
Client: Data Science Lab and Engineering Lab
Students from Civil Engineering, Building Engineering and Water Management work together during the Coastal Challenge: a 4-month hackathon where they build scale models of areas in the region. These models show ways how the province of Zeeland can adapt to rising water levels. The models are actual wood maquettes, meaning that they are static and don't allow for visualising or experiencing certain effects or stories. Making use of AR technologies, we can make these scale models come to life. Think of showing how an area could be flooded, and how to sync that animation to other headsets for a guided visit...
XR Escape rooms | Dutch or English | MBO
Client: JRCZ - and any student or employee of JRCZ
We want to show the power of XR (Extended Reality) to more people than just the few that are intrinsically interested. A very powerful way is to have people play a short, simple and fun game that really leverages XR technology. Therefore, we would really like to develop XR Escape Rooms in multiple themes that students or employees can play. If they are as excited about the technology as us, then they'll come more often and use it more! Full creative freedom allowed as long as the game is short, simple, fun and playable in a standalone Meta Quest 3 headset.
Your own idea! | Dutch or English | internship or graduation
Client: let us know!
Do you have an idea that you'd like to work on in the Data Science Lab? Let us know! If we agree that your idea aligns with our goals, clients or own ideas, you might just get to do it!