EESTEC is active all over Europe without headquarters. One EESTECer in Zurich might take responsibility for an event organised in the Netherlands. Our hackathon qualification rounds are organised in maybe 10 locations on the continent around the same time. And our IT services are managed and improved by a team spread out over multiple countries. Our educational opportunities might be offered by a student in Patras, Greece, and one from Istanbul to attendees from Milan and Madrid. And all this is overseen and organised by a decentralized board of just 5 EESTECers who might really know each other for just a few months. How does this all work?
The great news first: EESTEC international actually has its own live events, and not just a few. They are organised in collaboration with our branches who get some unique benefits from this including free Trainer Team sessions for their members, the entire official part of the event taken care of, and connecting with the important people in EESTEC.
Most international Teams (the IT, Design, CR, Regio, EESTech Challenge, etc.) get their own live events where the hard workers from the digital world get to meet and party in person. Those week-long events are generally organized in a sprint-like style to make the most of the limited in-person time and are followed by a party weekend (IMW).
But when working online, how can that be done fun and effectively?
Most planning, conceptualizing, and innovating work is done in intense working sessions in which brainstorming and discussion take place, action points, and next steps are agreed upon, information is spread and many activating and innovative working methods are used, for example OSTs and agile methods. EESTEC’s culture of respecting everyone’s input and prioritizing efficiency and conciseness makes the meetings much more bearable than you would expect. Cracking jokes is always welcome, and each meeting is eternalized with a fun picture.
Further, the Teams have completely work-unrelated online meetings like movie nights, gaming sessions, and trash talk rounds. Casual topics are of course also discussed in all the meme-infested group chats of each Team.
Working, fooling around and making friends online and at events in EESTEC international is not only much easier than one might expect but also highly rewarding through the friends, memories and experience one gains. It doesn’t take much to get started, the published open positions (Call for Members) hold many opportunities for every skill level, even for limited time availability and in various fields.
