Social and affordable housing providers around Europe are dealing with rapidly changing conditions. Pressures to increase efficiency have them working in new ways, propelled by the rapid pace of prop-tech innovation. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the digitalisation of many of their organisational functions and services has sped up. Multiple aspects of housing professionals’ work and daily lives have been brought online, rapidly altering communications with colleagues, partners and tenants. Amidst hopes that our patterns of living will soon normalise, the year 2021 has many of us asking if higher levels of remote working and digital service provision are becoming the new normal. The ways in which we learn from our peers are also evolving, with virtual and hybrid models of staff exchanges and professional training being embraced as we wait to resume travel.
This 2021 edition of the Summer School for Young and Early-Career Housing Professionals will be delivered
through an interactive online platform in sessions designed to fit around other work or activities. It will bring our students into discussion with leading experts to learn about emerging practices in digitalising housing and community services to meet the needs of diverse communities, and to empower their residents to help each other. Students will work together to learn how organizational practices are changing around Europe, and to critically evaluate digital and smart home innovations by identifying the risks they pose – as well as the benefits they offer – for housing providers, tenants and communities.
Our highly interactive programme will combine lectures and discussions with small team collaborations, enabling students to learn from their international peers and establish networks despite lockdowns. Teams will research, discuss and then present recommendations for challenges relating to digital inclusion, community capacity building, smart home technology, new income streams for social housing, and remote working. With EFL and EBZ
Business School’s assistance, their findings and recommendations will be collated into an international report.
The participation fee is 500,00 € per person; if employed
by a company that is a member of EFL European Federation for Living, a reduced fee of 350,00 €