Data Science Intern – Coral Conservation AI
Contract type: Internship
Location: Remote / Hybrid (Orange Business offices in Evere) (internal project with Tēnaka via Orange Business)
Duration: 3–6 months (flexible, can align with academic schedule), to start in September
FR or NL + EN
About the Project:
We’re collaborating with Tēnaka on the “Let’s Revive” initiative to restore and protect coral reef ecosystems. The project uses AI to monitor marine biodiversity—specifically detecting fish and megafauna species around restored corals—by analyzing imagery. Model outputs are published to an Azure dataset and consumed by the Tēnaka science front end to display results to end users, enabling data-driven conservation insights.
Role Overview:
We’re looking for a curious and collaborative Data Science Intern to help enhance our image-based object detection pipeline (YOLOv8 preferred) for marine species identification. Beyond technical ability, we want someone who asks the right questions, challenges assumptions, and works closely with business and domain stakeholders to turn requirements into impactful, production-ready model improvements.
What You’ll Do:
All the responsibilities we’ll trust you with
1. Improve and evaluate computer vision models (YOLOv8 preferred) for detecting fish and megafauna in underwater images.
2. Assist in building and validating data pipelines, including annotation quality checks and model evaluation metrics.
3. Collaborate with business users and domain experts to refine requirements; proactively surface ambiguities and suggest improvements.
4. Conduct error analysis and propose model/data-centric interventions to boost performance (, augmentation strategies, class imbalance handling, domain adaptation).
5. Support the integration of model outputs into the Azure dataset and ensure downstream consumption by the Tēnaka science front end is smooth and reliable.
6. Document experiments, assumptions, and findings in clear, stakeholder-accessible formats.
Who you are:
That matter most for this role
7. Currently pursuing or recently completed a degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Math, or a related field.
8. Familiarity with computer vision concepts and some hands-on experience (coursework, personal project, internship) with object detection; experience with YOLOv8 is a strong plus.
9. Proficient in Python and common ML tooling (, Ultralytics implementation of YOLO, OpenCV, PyTorch).
10. Some exposure to cloud platforms, preferably Azure (, Azure ML, Blob Storage, datasets) is helpful but not mandatory.
11. Strong analytical thinking; able to interrogate model outputs and translate business questions into measurable objectives.
12. Excellent communication in FR/NL and EN—capable of discussing technical trade-offs with stakeholders and translating feedback into actionable tasks.
13. Passion for environmental sustainability or conservation is highly valued.
Nice-to-Haves:
14. Experience working with noisy real-world image data (, underwater imagery, low-light conditions).
15. Familiarity with Git version control and collaboration workflows.
Why you should join us/What you'll Gain:
Some of the rewards of working at Orange Business
16. Real-world impact on a marine conservation initiative.
17. Hands-on experience tuning and deploying vision models in a cross-disciplinary setting.
18. Mentorship in translating stakeholder needs into technical solutions.
19. Exposure to sustainable tech and digital transformation in the environmental space.
20. A community of experts - as Digital Natives, we put innovation at the heart of our expertise. Continuously seeking new ideas, we proudly host regular “Guild” workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions through our Data Meetups.
21. Career growth possibilities
22. We may work with tomorrow’s technology, but at our core we are a people-oriented organization and we are proud to have our Great Place to Work certification
23. An open and inclusive culture, that enables us to reach our full potential.
24. Hybrid ways of working and modern & collaborative office in Brussels
Apply now
We can’t wait to meet you!
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contract
Regular
Hybrid work