TAMPA — As a kid, Karan liked Cyborg, the DC Comics hero who can connect to almost any computer-based system. Aside from the cool machinery, what caught his attention was the idea that technology could work for people.
Now as an information technology student at the USF Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, Karan is building those connections himself. Through an internship with Red Rock Group Holdings, he helped develop technology for Enthora Live, creating tools that connect its identity-verification product with apps such as Slack and Webex.
The opportunity began with a connection through Bellini College. Karan's career advisor introduced him directly to Mandi Johnson, president of Enthora Live, helping him secure the internship.
From there, Karan worked alongside the team on developing, testing and implementing identity-verification technology designed for real-world use.
The result: The product Karan helped build adds a layer of identity assurance before someone joins a digital interaction, helping organizations confirm who’s joining and connect with greater confidence.
His first glimpse of the system working with a real person made the work feel different.
“Nobody pressed a button behind the scenes,” he said. The tool he built automatically verified the person's identity before granting access.
Karan’s internship put lessons from the classroom to work in a professional setting. In a USF cybersecurity course, COP 4931, he used Velociraptor and Splunk to investigate systems through the collection of evidence, log queries and pieced together what happened. At Red Rock, he drew on that same investigative approach when an app didn’t perform.
“I didn’t guess,” he said. “I went to the logs, reconstructed the sequence of events and found the actual cause.”
He also applied security practices to the apps he built. That meant checking that requests were legitimate and making sure users could access only their own data. Then he tested the tools with real accounts, documenting problems he found along the way.
Some messages got mixed up. Some failures happened silently. Too many requests could cause an app to be blocked.
Karan fixed the issues and added automatic checks to help catch them in the future. His notes also became a report for the team, with suggestions to make the product easier for other developers to use.
His work also gave him insight into how technology moves from development toward a protected commercial product. While the details of the patent-related processes remain confidential, Karan said the experience helped him understand how an idea can be built, tested and protected as a company develops it into a product. It also made him think more carefully about what makes a technology genuinely new.
Johnson said the company wanted its first intern through USF to contribute to meaningful projects alongside its team. Karan's approach to solving problems quickly stood out.
“Karan was approaching certain coding challenges in ways they weren't accustomed to seeing,” Johnson said. “He was using techniques and thinking through problems differently, and the results were fantastic.”
Johnson said Karan's contributions also reflected the preparation he received at USF's Bellini College.
“At a time when technology is changing at an extraordinary pace, preparing students for the workforce can't simply mean teaching them what is already known,” Johnson wrote. “It means teaching them how to think, experiment, adapt and use rapidly evolving tools to solve problems that may not have existed a few years ago.”
The experience changed how he defines finished work.
“Before this internship, I thought something was finished once it worked for me,” he said. “Now I think it’s finished when it works for real people, in real situations, and they can trust it.”
That shift also came from learning that professional tech work involves a lot more than building a feature. Connections can drop, systems can behave unexpectedly and people may use a product in ways its developers didn’t anticipate. Karan said he was surprised to find that his perspective as an intern could help the team notice things it had grown accustomed to seeing.
Johnson said the experience demonstrated how valuable a partnership between employers and universities can be when students are given opportunities to apply their knowledge.
“They haven't simply helped Red Rock find an intern,” Johnson wrote. “They have been genuine partners throughout this experience, and it is evident that they care deeply about connecting education with meaningful, real-world opportunities.”
Karan expects to graduate in December. His advice to other Bellini College students looking for opportunities? Take initiative, build something real and keep track of what puzzles you.
“Your questions are often the most valuable thing you can bring to the team,” he said.