Jeroen van Lent likes to end his presidency of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation with good news

Van Lent graduated from the EIT Digital Master School programme Internet Technology & Architecture in 2017 (now: Cloud and Network Infrastructures). His first university was KTH, “I fell in love with Scandinavia”, and his final year he studied at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) “interesting city to live in”. He now works as IT Project Officer at the European University Foundation (EUF) in Brussels. “This is a project manager position”, he says. “The EUF aims to modernise higher education. Universities by default are good in research and innovation they often struggle to apply the same mindset internally. I think there is a lot of room to digitise the administrative processes, that is what I try to do. I lead projects that develop digital tools to help students, like the Erasmus +app, digital online learning agreements, and tools to digitally exchange student records between universities. I can do this job well, because of the different aspects that the EIT Digital Master School has offered me. These are the entrepreneurial aspects like understanding of how to bring an idea into a product, and several soft skills like managing different tasks, meetings, and giving presentations.”

“After graduating, I got elected for the Board of the Erasmus Student Network in Brussels and I was not involved with the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation so much. I did meet the former president regularly though, and I hosted some alumni gatherings in Brussels. When I heard the foundation was looking for a new board, it sounded like a nice opportunity to get more involved in the community. And I could use the external experience that I had gained with working and living in Brussels. I have no regrets so far.”

“Being a president is a great opportunity. Although, the first half-year was definitely better, I have to admit. We could travel to places, organise events, meet our alumni members, and could do everything that the non-COVID world would allow. During those months, I learned a lot to better understand the needs of the community. I also met new friends, made interesting trips and got the opportunity to moderate the graduation ceremony of 2019.  I don't think many people have that opportunity in their career. These things were all unforgettable experiences and I hope we can get back to some of that in the coming two years.”

“The pandemic hit us hard. We were in the middle of preparing our annual meeting which had to be cancelled due to the restrictions. On average, we attracted about 150 people at our annual meetings. In the online equivalent last year, not even twenty per cent of that attended. That is quite a decrease in terms of engagement. Naturally, I believe the engagement will come back when we can host physical events again. I think what we did not realise, is that joining an online event is not always an obvious choice for the members.

We need to show everyone that we still have what it takes to organise events, that we are not just online, but that you can also meet alumni in person.” 

“I think our biggest achievement is that, despite the pandemic, we have managed to organise various events. We were able to quickly adjust and come up with new online formats we had no experience with before. We hosted, for example, a successful online hackathon and launched the concept of Tuesday Afterworks. These are online events with interesting speakers to learn from and network with fellow alumni. The online meetings are not the same, but it was interesting to try new things. We have seen that online meetings attract people from other continents than physical events. In the future, we will combine offline and online events to reach all our alumni who are living around the world. This is one of the steps towards a new vision of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation.”

“We are going to work on the vision in the next board meeting with the rest of the new Board, so I want to leave room for them to contribute as well. The foundation is relatively young and we still have the opportunity to learn from the community itself.  I think as alumni we have a role to fulfil as industry experts. We all have interesting careers and we can help each other with the expertise that we have gained. Furthermore, our people work in fields that may be new to EIT Digital’s ecosystem.  We can give back to the community and share our experiences. We have opportunities to talk with organisations that EIT Digital is not in touch with, like our alumni group in China. Furthermore, we hope to expand to new locations where we do not have a presence yet to expand our reach. It is interesting to have people in places that go beyond the natural reach of the EIT Digital ecosystem.”

“We have an interesting group of people at hand. The oldest members graduated seven years ago and each year the community is growing with more members. With that, the organisation needs to become more sustainable. That goes beyond the concept of being just a group of friends. We need to find ways to properly serve the needs of all members, where young and old alumni can mingle and help each other in their careers. That is the major challenge for us in the years ahead. The key now is to re-engage with the members and make sure people know about our events; bringing the engagement back to the pre-corona level. The second priority is to onboard all new graduates of the EIT Digital Master school.” 

“I think it takes the willingness to sacrifice free time. That is the case for all board members. For the president, it requires an understanding of how EIT Digital functions. I often talk to various stakeholders to discuss the role of the Foundation. I am responsible for the overall strategy of the Foundation, which consequently requires a little bit of strategic vision. It also takes team leadership which means to be supportive of my team. I try to make sure the rest of the board can do its work and is comfortable with the tasks. It is all about the willingness to make a change to lead this community.”

• Anna Prudnikova, the Marketing and Communication Officer of the EIT Digital Alumni Board: "Thanks to the EIT Digital Master School I am boosting my career real fast".
• Jaakko Laiho, the Treasurer of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation Board: "This is the community that I wanna be a part of".
• Luca Vavassori, the Events Officer of EIT Digital Alumni Foundation Board: "I developed an eagerness to meet people".
• Juliá Hermann,  the Secretary of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation Board: "I am a European citizen with a wide range of career options across Europe".
• Bruno Marafini, the Technology Officer of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation Board: "Bruno is always looking for things to do".
• Carlos Callejo, the Outreach and Partnerships Officer of the EIT Digital Alumni Foundation Board: "I discovered in me an entrepreneurial mindset".