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Hi, everyone.

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My name is Sian Douglas
and over the summer I

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interned at AIRINC which is The
Associates for International

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Research based in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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AIRINC is a company
that was founded in 1954

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and they operate in
different countries.

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They have headquarters
in London, Brussels,

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and Hong Kong.

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My work there
specifically was in cost

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of living analysis, where they
bundled together packages,

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helping executives
relocate to other cities

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or other countries.

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They actually have
a team of surveyors

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who spend six
weeks in the office

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and then six weeks out by
collecting this information

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first-hand and they'll bring
it back bundling it, sending it

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to client engagement, and
then offering it to clients.

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I personally was looking at the
North American rental markets.

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And so I worked on a
team of three interns.

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One was a Northeastern
co-op, and there

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was my co-intern and myself.

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Together we
collected information

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for over 90 different locations
across North American,

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so both the US and Canada.

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So part of this is we're
bundling budgets together

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for people, so that when they
move to their new location,

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they have a realistic idea
of what they are going

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to be spending [INAUDIBLE].

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Our clients can offer to
subsidize their packages

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or offer extra hardships
that they wouldn't have

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where they were previously.

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So on my right, I have
listed so that client

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list that is publicly available
on the AIRINC website.

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These are a group of Fortune
100 companies, other clients.

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They don't represent all
of our clients, just some

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that we have extensive
history with.

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So on the left, we have what our
clients would be looking for.

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I grouped it into three
sections of availability, price

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and quality, and then
the research itself.

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So with availability, with
each respective town that I had

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or city that I had
across the US and Canada,

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we had to look at the supply
and demand of rental units

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in those cities.

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So whether it was
houses or apartments,

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some major things had to
go into consideration.

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So say if another company had
bought a warehouse or factory

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or opened up an
office in this space,

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they might be moving a lot
of executives into that area

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and they'd be going into
the rental units [INAUDIBLE]

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the supply of rental units
available would be limited.

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That would be
information that would

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be useful to include
in our report.

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In some sad cases, there
would be companies moving out

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of an area and there's lower
demand and greater supply

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available, then that
would be something to take

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into consideration as well.

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In some cases where there
is very high demand and very

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limited supply,
we'd also find cases

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of new construction becoming
available in that area.

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Typically there would
be a high quality

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units, and because the companies
that we're looking to help

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relocate, our executives
that we're looking to move,

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so this would be looking
for high quality units that

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would have granite
countertops, hardwood

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floors, stainless steel
appliances, and things

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like that.

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And so having that information
as well just helped round

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out the economics report.

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So beyond that, looking
at the variation

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of the units available,
there were some locations

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that I faced where there were
only apartments available,

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such as in New York City.

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And then some places
where you could only

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finds houses for rent in
like Moncton in Canada.

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And so taking that
into consideration,

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I then got to write reports
based on what was available.

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And then I had to
look at the prices,

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gauging where the
quality began and what

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was a suitable or reasonable
range for these executives

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looking to relocate.

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So then following that, I
had to do extensive research

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on each location that I had.

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This included looking
at previous reports.

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The company's been
around for a while,

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so there was a lot
of previous reports

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that I could read through
and get an idea of what

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I was going into.

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And then I would
do online research,

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would look through
other the market trends.

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And so I would be able to
create questions in my mind so

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when I would talk to people who
firsthand worked in real estate

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markets that I could have
intelligent questions to have

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them follow through with.

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So I spoke with over 100
realtors over the summer.

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I also spoke to members of
the chamber of commerce,

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and they all helped me pull
together budgets, pull together

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real estate and
economics reports,

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and just made my
experience what it was.

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So I've listed here
all my 36 locations

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that I did over
the summer, but I

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felt like this was just
too much information,

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so I put it onto a map.

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So two of my main
groupings that I had,

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that I had the
opportunity to work with

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were both biotech companies
and also oil companies.

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It wasn't just [INAUDIBLE]
favorite ones [INAUDIBLE].

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And so I got to experience,
one, to learn a lot

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about all over
the US and Canada,

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which are places I'd
never been before.

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I dealt with time zones, I
dealt with different cultures,

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different movements.

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I had this one case
in New Mexico where

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there was a town
of 40,000 people,

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and following the oil
crisis of prices changing,

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10,000 people left.

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So the supply
drastically changes

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Interesting things like that
that came up on my experience,

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and that made it
what it really was.

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And so to do this internship,
having [INAUDIBLE] experience

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helps, but it certainly helps
you develop your presence

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on the phone, presence in
talking with some people who

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are easy to talk to, some
people who are hard to talk to,

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and overall that
helped me develop.

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And then I also got a
better understanding

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of global mobility.

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Within AIRINC, they really
like reaching back to people.

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I got to attend talks
talking about how

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Nepal was after the earthquake.

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I got to hear about
living in Thailand

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after the coups and
all of these things,

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because it is a
really global company,

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and so that was a
really great experience.

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I also got to teach the
new intern that came in.

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I got to to do it by example.

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I got to show her how
reports should look.

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And overall, that
was incredible.

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That was one of
my favorite parts.

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And I also beta-tested
a new database.

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AIRINC itself is going through
a lot of changes right now.

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They just merged with
a Japanese company.

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And they also have a
bunch of changes going on

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in work, so it was a really
great time to be there.

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And this is just
one follow-up point.

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So I did this really
sensitive case

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where there was a forest
fire in Fort McMurray,

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and the whole town was
evacuated, a lot of the town

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was destroyed.

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And so I wrote up this report,
and then I emailed my boss

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inviting him to be here.

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He couldn't be here today,
but he sent this back

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saying that your work
is being published

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and that it's available.

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And so that really felt
like my work was important,

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and that I could take
something from it.

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Thank you.

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