Light Polymers is an innovative technology company focused on groundbreaking lyotropic liquid crystal chemistry that changes the manufacturing paradigm for numerous LED lighting applications, OLED display screens, architectural materials and more. Cutting edge science and key business partnerships give Light Polymers a competitive advantage. Another crucial aspect to their success is the skilled Light Polymers team. In this series, we are going to introduce some of Light Polymers’ interns who work in various technical and business capacities.
Gabriela Lund is Light Polymers’ social media marketing intern. A 3rd Year student at UC Berkeley working on her BA in Media, Gabriela wanted to augment the conceptual course-plan focused on media theory with hands on business experience. Expanding her experience from school culture to the ‘real world’ of business gives Gabriela an understanding of what it really takes to be successful. Before Light Polymers, Gabriela had worked with a local ad agency and various service jobs, but Light Polymers is the first full application of her degree.
“Internship experience is a big part of moving from college culture to office culture and working in the business world. Learning about the various aspects that go into researching target audiences for a new product is a lesson that I don’t get in the classroom – these experiences are needed to prepare for leaving school,” remarked Gabriela.
Commuting from Berkeley by train each day, Gabriela enters the office in South San Francisco with the goal of connecting with the team to ensure she understands both the daily media tasks and ongoing marketing objectives. Learning how a startup works and the process of taking a big idea to its full potential has allowed Gabriela to better apply media theory to actual business. With the many exciting applications that are coming from Light Polymers’ proprietary chemistry, Gabriela is learning to feed off internal enthusiasm to deliver compelling content while content is topical and while ideas are fresh. With the launch of the newest iteration of the Light Polymers website (and more web content to come) assisting the design team in creating website content and copy has been a key focus for Gabriela.
Brought on as the “storyteller” for the upcoming Crystallin® product line, Gabriela’s main role centers around the Crystallin® product release. Learning to speak the ‘language of consumers’ while creating website copy has been a learning experience. The need to detail the specific technical aspects of Crystallin® lighting products to customers to show their superiority to competing LED luminaires requires collaboration. Leveraging a mixture of creative and technical team assets with good communication helps Gabriela promote team collaboration.
Gabriela has been continuously learning in this role as well as taking on other tasks. Whether invoicing, or joining in on PR meetings, or taking tasks off other team-members as needed, she has discovered that working with a startup means being able to wear multiple hats. Light Polymers has shown her the impact of her contributions to the company and the team. Seeing her content on the live corporate website helped her understand that her contribution was critical – these experiences have helped her grow and learn what it really takes to be successful.
Whether learning how to employ patience & motivation to augment drive, how to delegate time to tasks in a way that has the biggest return for time, or how to always ask questions and understand the key language for content creation, Gabriela’s internship has given her an opportunity to discover the business applications of her college education.
What has Gabriela liked best about her experience at Light Polymers?
“Learning about working in a small company and accumulating the communication skills necessary for success. The social benefits of the products I’m helping Light Polymers bring to market are products that can really make a difference and I am pleased to be a part of that. Oh, and since a number of our team members came from Russia, I’ve been learning a bit of Russian too!”
Light Polymers is a nanochemistry startup based in Silicon Valley which is bringing groundbreaking lyotropic liquid crystal chemistry to the market. Our proprietary chemistry enhances OLED displays, improves the efficiency in LED lighting and has a wide array of other applications.
