The LIDE offers pre-professional internship opportunities to students of economics, political science, statistics, and related fields. Interns learn to collect, clean, and analyze data to create their own articles for the blog El Quantificador. Some of them also assist in the preparation of academic articles and become co-authors of these studies.

At the start of their internship, interns receive a free DataCamp license. With DataCamp, they learn the basics of R and Python for data analysis and visualization, Markdown for report creation, and Git and GitHub for version control. Interns typically choose two or three social issues of interest and develop their articles using open databases and INEC resources. Throughout this process, they receive constant mentorship and training from the Laboratory’s academic team to enhance their learning and performance. At the end of the internship, their articles are published on the blog El Quantificador and indexed on Google Scholar.

Interns work individually or in teams and have the opportunity to participate in the Laboratory’s strategic meetings and academic discussions with its members. After learning with us, some of our graduates have gone on to hold positions as economic analysts and data analysts in prestigious Ecuadorian firms. Others have chosen to continue an academic career and pursue a master’s degree program.

Currently, LIDE has pre-professional internship agreements with the following universities and technical institutes:

Universidad Politécnica del Litoral Universidad San Francisco de Quito Universidad Politécnica de Chimborazo Tecnológico Universitario Argos Universidad de Guayaquil Yachay Tech

If you would like your university or technical institute to sign an agreement with LIDE so we can welcome interns, please contact us at admin@laboratoriolide.org.