AI-Centric Business Development Intern

Business Development & Agentic AI Intern

Inventors Foundation | Inventorium Awards & Conference
Location: Remote or hybrid, Silicon Valley preferred
Type: Internship, part-time or full-time
Term: Flexible, ideally 3–6 months
Compensation: To be determined based on experience, availability, and academic credit requirements

About Inventors Foundation

Inventors Foundation is a Silicon Valley–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to recognizing inventors and patented innovations. The Foundation provides a global platform to celebrate creativity, protect intellectual property, and inspire future innovators.

The Foundation’s signature platform, the Inventorium Awards and Conference, brings together inventors, corporate innovation leaders, in-house IP counsel, law firms, technologists, and industry professionals to celebrate patented innovation and strengthen the culture of invention.

Role Overview

Inventors Foundation is seeking a highly motivated Business Development & Agentic AI Intern to help scale outreach and engagement for the Inventorium Awards and Conference.

This is not a traditional internship. You will help design and build AI-enabled business development workflows that identify, prioritize, and engage prospective sponsors, speakers, members, corporate partners, and innovation leaders. The ideal candidate is entrepreneurial, curious about AI automation, comfortable with outreach, and excited by the intersection of innovation, intellectual property, nonprofits, and relationship-driven growth.

You will work directly on systems that help the Foundation expand its reach among law firms, corporate legal departments, innovation teams, inventors, and ecosystem partners.

Key Responsibilities

Agentic AI Workflow Development

Develop AI-assisted workflows to support sponsor, speaker, and member outreach.

Build repeatable systems for prospect research, segmentation, lead scoring, personalized email drafting, follow-up reminders, and engagement tracking.

Use tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Clay, Airtable, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n, HubSpot, Bigin, LinkedIn, or similar platforms.

Create human-in-the-loop processes to ensure outreach remains accurate, respectful, professional, and aligned with the Foundation’s brand voice.

Test and refine AI prompts, outreach sequences, research templates, and workflow automations.

Business Development & Outreach

Research potential sponsors, including IP law firms, technology companies, innovation-focused corporations, patent service providers, and professional associations.

Identify prospective speakers, panelists, award nominators, advisory participants, and corporate members.

Draft personalized outreach emails, LinkedIn messages, sponsorship follow-ups, and engagement notes.

Help maintain and enrich the Foundation’s CRM with accurate contact information, relationship history, sponsorship status, and next-step recommendations.

Support outreach campaigns for the Inventorium Awards, Inventorium Conference, Sparks storytelling initiatives, and inventor recognition programs.

Market & Relationship Intelligence

Research companies with strong patenting activity, innovation programs, inventor recognition initiatives, or IP leadership.

Analyze potential sponsor fit based on industry, practice area, brand alignment, prior event sponsorships, patent/IP focus, and relationship potential.

Help build target lists of in-house IP leaders, innovation executives, law firm partners, patent strategists, and technology ecosystem stakeholders.

Summarize prospect insights into concise briefing notes for Foundation leadership.

Content & Engagement Support

Support sponsor-facing and member-facing communications, including short summaries, campaign copy, and customized value propositions.

Help align outreach messaging with the Foundation’s positioning around inventor recognition, innovation culture, and intellectual property leadership.

Assist with engagement around inventor recognition benchmarking initiatives, including corporate legal departments and external counsel audiences.

Track outreach performance and recommend improvements based on response rates, meeting conversions, and sponsor/member interest.

What You Will Build

By the end of the internship, the successful candidate should have helped create:

A structured sponsor and member prospecting database.

AI-powered research and outreach workflows.

Personalized email and LinkedIn outreach templates.

A repeatable follow-up and engagement system.

Lead scoring criteria for sponsors, speakers, members, and strategic partners.

CRM workflows that help the Foundation move from manual outreach to scalable relationship development.

A playbook for future interns and staff to continue using and improving the system.

Ideal Candidate

We are looking for someone who is:

Entrepreneurial, resourceful, and comfortable building from scratch.

Interested in AI, automation, business development, startups, nonprofits, innovation, or intellectual property.

A strong writer who can produce professional, polished, and personalized outreach.

Comfortable researching companies, executives, law firms, and professional organizations.

Organized and detail-oriented, especially when managing lists, contacts, workflows, and follow-ups.

Curious about how agentic AI can improve relationship-building without making outreach feel generic or automated.

Willing to test, iterate, and improve systems based on real-world feedback.

Preferred Qualifications

Current undergraduate, graduate student, recent graduate, or early-career professional in business, marketing, entrepreneurship, computer science, data science, communications, law, public policy, or a related field.

Experience with AI tools, workflow automation, CRM systems, email outreach, LinkedIn research, or business development.

Familiarity with intellectual property, patents, startups, technology companies, law firms, or corporate innovation is a plus but not required.

Experience with Google Workspace, spreadsheets, Airtable, Notion, HubSpot, Bigin, Zapier, Make, n8n, Clay, or similar tools is helpful.

Learning Opportunities

This internship offers hands-on experience in:

Agentic AI workflow design.

Business development strategy.

Sponsor and member acquisition.

CRM and sales operations.

Nonprofit growth strategy.

Innovation ecosystem mapping.

Professional outreach to senior executives, law firm partners, IP leaders, and corporate innovation teams.

Building scalable systems for a mission-driven organization.

Why This Role Matters

Inventors Foundation is building a global platform to recognize inventors, celebrate patented innovation, and strengthen the role of intellectual property in advancing society. The Inventorium Awards and Conference are designed to connect inventors, legal professionals, corporate leaders, and innovation stakeholders around a shared mission: celebrating innovation and honoring excellence.

This intern will help build the outreach engine that makes that mission scalable.

To Apply

Please submit:

Your resume or LinkedIn profile.

A short note explaining why this role interests you.

One example of a workflow, automation, outreach campaign, AI project, research project, or business development effort you have worked on, if available.

Subject line: Business Development & Agentic AI Intern – Inventors Foundation