Each year we host around half-a-dozen interns (stagiaires), for periods of two to six months. These young men and women are usually studying or have just finished studying for undergraduate or Master’s degrees, and are eager to gain experience in the blockchain industry. Each has a unique story to tell about their individual interest in this technology.

In this blogpost, we will ask three questions of one of our current interns: Corentin Calmels (and a couple of questions of his mentor at Nomadic Labs).

Corentin; so happy to have you with us! We hope you’re having a wonderful and educational period with Nomadic Labs. Please, tell us a bit about yourself and your activities chez nous …

Questions for Corentin

1. Please present yourself and your academic background

My name is Corentin Calmels. I’m 20 years old and from Paris. I speak fluent French and English, and am studying German and Japanese.

I am a student in HEC Paris business school HEC Paris business school. I completed the Bloomberg Certificate of Finance and I would like to specialize in finance in my future career. I’m doing a summer internship at Nomadic Labs, from June to early August 2021.

I discovered blockchain through newspaper headlines, but I wanted to go deeper and link my studies with blockchain, so I got a job in May with HEC Bourse(the HEC finance association) as a cryptocurrency columnist, and applied for a summer internship at Nomadic Labs. In so doing, I discovered an incredible technology.

2. Tell us more about your internship: main subject, who is your mentor, what you have learned and especially, what surprised you the most within these months?

I’m working at Nomadic Labs with the adoption team, under the supervision of Thibaut Chessé. I’m learning about blockchain and adoption techniques, including about how to strengthen relationships with potential corporate adopters, and about analysis and presentation skills to help identify and solve potential adopters’ key needs.

I also study DeFi (Decentralized Finance), which I believe will be the core of tomorrow’s finance. Blockchain itself is a key DeFi technology, and although DeFi is quite recent, I have big expectations for the field and it’s exciting to see it grow day by day.

My role is to support the adoption team. I am in daily contact with companies and public clients to discuss and develop potential applications of the Tezos blockchain. For instance, one of our recent adopters is McLaren Racing, which is developing a Formula 1 NFT (non-fungible token) platform on Tezos.

Since I began the internship on 1 June 2021, my understanding of blockchain and crypto has greatly increased. I’ve been exposed to a diversity of fields in blockchain: central bank digital currencies; euro stablecoins such as Lugh; tokenized and decentralized art marketplaces such as HicEtNunc; and even sports collectibles implemented as NFTs (blockchain-based collectible fan cards!) for example in car racing in cooperation with Redbull.

It is astonishing how much blockchain has already impacted on our lives. Working here has opened my eyes to the industry’s potential.

3. Why did you choose to become a part of the blockchain ecosystem and Nomadic labs? What are your plans after completing this internship?

I’m a Blockchain enthusiast and I want to learn more about this state-of-the-art technology, which will soon be ubiquitous. Who better to work with than the pioneers in the field?

Nomadic Labs is one of the most important companies in the Tezos ecosystem and is a key contributor to its development. Like me, Nomadic Labs is based in Paris, and it’s wonderful to have a great blockchain company on my doorstep — all the more so because Nomadic Labs also has a richness of nationalities and cultural diversity.

Tezos itself has some unique features that I think will make it the blockchain of tomorrow — such as its unique self-amendment facility, and the on-chain governance — and this is even more reason to be involved in this project. After my internship, I plan to complete my studies, and then get professionally involved in digitalization of finance through blockchain.

Questions for Corentin’s Nomadic Labs mentor Thibaut Chessé:

What is your input to the work of Corentin?

As Corentin’s internship supervisor, I help him to understand blockchain-related business issues, and provide him with analytical methods and knowledge about blockchain and its ecosystem.

Why is the topic of this internship important?

It’s fair to say that industry accepts that blockchain is or could be a transformative technology. But, a big part of the challenge to actually applying blockchain to capture value is understanding how to support adoption, communication, marketing, and business processes.

Think of the sailing ship: the business case for transporting cargos across oceans is clear, but you can still invent insurance, limited companies, shareholders, new kinds of advertising, and many other business innovations to get the most out of the technology.

Thus Corentin is studying business and marketing strategies for promoting the emerging market of blockchain-based business solutions, and thinking about how to systematically analyze the complexities and the opportunities that players from different industries face when developing blockchain innovations. It’s a nascent field and the scope for business innovation is effectively unlimited.