Community plays a great – often undervalued – role!

I just came back from few days spent in the Annual Meeting with my Master Labeled Alumni Program (EIT Digital Alumni). I was one of the first Alumni of this program (July ‘14) and it is amazing to see how the community is growing year by year. Indeed, not only the community as number of talented people is growing, but also the competences, the ideas the career stories and thus the overall positive vibes in it has taken off. All this, glued by a tireless board of Alumni that put energy, time and effort to provide extra value to the community, plays a great role in the after-formation of the graduate students.

Mixing up hundred people from 30+ nationalities sparse in different countries, which are working or researching in different fields from Machine Learning to Energy Grid and IoT just to name a few...has different important results. The first is probably inspiration. Get inspired from career stories or fields of research where some of the competences you learn may be applied is definitely a good result. State of play and opportunities are also an important outcome. The world is rapidly changing and every one of us, even if part of highly trained IT experts, knows just a bit of the ever-changing industrialized society. One thing is to know something about technologies in theory, completely different is to get a taste of how this may totally change or disrupt an industry sector. Last but not least is a growing passion and care for causes. The EIT is not just about tech; it is a multi-path programme that lead to the formation of talented people in different fields such as Energy, Raw Material, Health, Food and other primary interests of every human being. Within these fields of research or business case solutions there are human basic needs and societal changes that need to be addressed in the upcoming years; climate change is just the tip of the iceberg but there are many others. Having passionate people that spread the word while actively trying to tackle these problems spreading their passion in front of every possible stakeholders taking place in such conference is already a de-facto result.  
 

Finally, the community helps in keeping connections and have fun together besides our shared professional skills and competences. Having a morning run together or just discover that you shared some interest in reading specific kind of books help people in getting to speak about normal things in life. It does not matter if the argument is sport, personal life, politics, disruptive technologies, societal problems or others...all the discussions between people of different culture and nationality help each other in understanding better today society on a broader scale than just our limited “everyday view”.

Thanks to all that contributed to the event both in the organization, in the everyday activities and all those that shared the positive vibe!

Steven Tait

[Originally posted on Linkedin on May 3, 2018. Written by EIT Digital Alumnus Steven Tait]